UAE public holidays: When is the next long weekend in 2023?

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The Islamic New Year Holiday allowed private and public sector employees to mark a long weekend in July. However, workers will not have to wait long for the next public holiday which comes up in September.

The UAE Cabinet has granted the private sector equal official holidays in order to streamline work in both the public and private sectors.

#مجلس_الوزراء يعتمد أجندة العطلات الرسمية للعاملين في القطاعين الحكومي والخاص للعام 2023 pic.twitter.com/mgZiXfbaby

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Here is a list of the upcoming holidays:

Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) birthday

In most Islamic countries, the Prophet’s birthday will be observed on 12 Rabi’ Al-Awwal 1445, which is the third month of the Islamic calendar.

As per the Gregorian Calendar, this coincides with the month of September this year.

The holiday calendar released by MoHRE in December last year notified that the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday will be marked on Friday, September 29, 2023.

For those working in the public and private sector with a regular Saturday-Sunday weekend, this would mean a long weekend at the end of September as the country marks the holy day of Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi.

Commemoration Day and UAE National Day

The UAE’s Commemoration Day (also known as Martyrs’ Day) is annually celebrated on December 1. This year December 1 falls on a Friday. This will be followed by the country’s celebrating its National Day on December 2, which is a Saturday.

This means the first week of December will have the last three-day long weekend for this year.

2024

New Year break

While many of us in the UAE will take a holiday to celebrate Christmas and the New Year, those of us in the country will get to start off 2024 with a long weekend as well. As per convention January 1 is a public holiday which will fall on a Monday next year.