Namibia Public Holidays
Discover upcoming public holiday dates for Namibia and start planning to make the most of your time off.
Namibia has established 12 national holidays under the Holiday Act of 1990. This law replaces the previous Holiday Act of 1987 and has not had any additional changes or amendments made to the Act since its inception. However, different special holidays that are one-time events have taken place on different years.
Under this law, any holiday that falls on a Sunday is automatically moved to the following Monday. The laws of Namibia also allow the President to declare up to two additional holidays each year at their discretion. If any holidays are declared using this law, they are published in the National Gazette and are only observed for that specific year. Employers are required to acknowledge these holidays.
Chapter 3, Part C Section 21 of the Namibia Labour Code states that all employees are required to receive a paid day off for a nationally recognised holiday if they come to work the day before and the day after the holiday. If either of these days is missed by the fault of the employee, they do not receive holiday pay.
Any employee that works on a holiday because of the nature of their position are required to receive time and one half as a rate of pay per hour for every hour worked that day or, if the employee agrees, a different paid day off to replace the missed holiday.