Public holidays in Cyprus for 2026 and 2027

Before you fix your dates, it’s worth looking at the Cypriot calendar, because it’s not quite like the UK’s. Easter is the Orthodox one, there are Greek and Cypriot national days, and Christmas brings three holidays in a row. Here are the holidays left in 2026 and all of those in 2027, with the day of the week. To see what else is on through the year, look at things to do in Cyprus.

Where these dates come from

I haven’t found the holiday calendar on an official Cypriot website I’m able to cite, so I use the list every EU country supplies to the European Medicines Agency for its clinical trials system. The agency publishes it each year and allows reproduction with the source acknowledged. For Cyprus it records sixteen holidays in 2026 and another sixteen in 2027, and the names below are the ones on that list.

What’s left of 2026

If you’re travelling this autumn or at Christmas, four holidays remain. Wednesday 28 October is Ochi Day, and in December the list includes Christmas Eve on Thursday 24, Christmas Day on Friday 25 and the day after on Saturday 26. It makes a long weekend, and what you can do then is in Christmas in Cyprus.

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Public holidays in 2027

The year opens with New Year’s Day on Friday 1 January and Epiphany on Wednesday 6. Then come Clean Monday on 15 March, the first day of Lent covered in Green Monday in Cyprus, the day after the big parade of Limassol Carnival, Greek Revolution Day on Thursday 25 March and the National Holiday on Thursday 1 April.

Orthodox Easter sits at the heart of the calendar, and I cover its customs in Easter in Cyprus. Add Labour Day on Saturday 1 May to the three Easter holidays of 2027 and you get four days off in a row. Fifty days on comes Holy Spirit Day, Monday 21 June. Assumption Day lands on a Sunday, 15 August, and autumn brings Independence Day on Friday 1 October and Ochi Day on Thursday 28. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after, Friday 24 to Sunday 26 December, close the year.

Independence Day on 1 October

Here’s a detail that catches people out. The House of Representatives records that Cyprus ceased to be a British colony at midnight on 15-16 August 1960, yet Independence Day is celebrated on 1 October, with a parade in Nicosia. The official texts I’ve read are silent on why that date, so that stays an open question. The full story is in the history of Cyprus.

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What it means for your trip

No authority I know of publishes which museums or shops open on each holiday. My advice is simple. If your trip overlaps one, check the opening times of whatever you want to see and your transfers the day before, and book accommodation early for Orthodox Easter and Christmas. Usual shop hours, including the Sundays and holidays when some shops open, are in shopping in Cyprus. Why Cypriot Easter doesn’t match the UK’s is explained in religion in Cyprus.

If you’re curious about how 1 October is marked, with the Nicosia parade, I cover it in Cyprus Independence Day, and festivals with a programme, such as Paphos’s opera, in the Pafos Aphrodite Festival.

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