Halloween

🇯🇵How does Japan mark Halloween?ハロウィン

Japan's public holidays are listed one by one in the Act on National Holidays (Act No. 178 of 1948). The Cabinet Office publishes sixteen of them; the only one in October is Sports Day, the second Monday. Halloween is not among them and no national statute mentions it. Two Tokyo wards legislate in its place. Shibuya enacted its Ordinance on Securing a Safe and Secure Environment in the Area around Shibuya Station in June 2019, and the ward's own account of why is blunt: during Halloween and the New Year countdown, nuisance behaviour by some visitors was threatening the safety and order of the area. The amendment in force from 1 October 2024 turned the street-drinking rule into a year-round ban — 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., in streets, parks and other public places — and enlarged the restricted zone, with Article 6(2) allowing the ward to lift it for designated events on a month's notice. On 11 October 2023 the mayor, Ken Hasebe, published a statement in his own name: Shibuya is NOT a venue for Halloween events, and anyone planning to come to the Shibuya Station area for Halloween on 31 October or in the days before should refrain. Shinjuku followed with its own ordinance in 2024. Its restricted zone is part of Shinjuku 3-chome and Kabukicho 1-chome and its restricted period is 31 October and 1 November; for 2026 the ward has posted 5 p.m. on Saturday 31 October to 5 a.m. on Sunday 1 November, and it asks liquor retailers inside the zone to suspend sales voluntarily. Lighting fires, climbing streetlights or buildings, and making noise with audio equipment are all prohibited. There is no penalty attached — ward staff patrol and instruct.

city.shibuya.tokyo.jp ↗city.shibuya.tokyo.jp ↗

🇹🇼How does Taiwan mark Halloween?萬聖節

Halloween appears nowhere in Taiwan's Act on the Implementation of Commemorative Days and Holidays. Administered by the Ministry of the Interior, the Act names twenty commemorative days in Article 3 and twenty-eight festivals in Article 5, running from Lunar New Year and Tomb-Sweeping Day to Immigrants' Day, and Halloween is in neither list. Article 5 does leave an opening — item 28 admits "other days approved by the competent central authority" — but no ministry has used it for Halloween, and Article 6(3) states that festivals outside the enumerated ones carry no day off at all. What Taiwan has instead is municipal, and it is run frankly as shopping-district economics. Taoyuan City Government's Halloween City opened its fifth edition on 26 October 2024 at the Taoyuan Arts Plaza and the Arts Green Park and ran nine days, to 3 November. Tainan's Hai'an tourist shopping district held a two-day Halloween party in 2025 on Hai'an Road in West Central District — a costume parade, a DJ party and close to a hundred market stalls — with the city government wiring it into the Tainan Shopping Festival prize draw. Ask whether Taiwan gets the day off and the answer is a flat no; ask where Halloween happens and the answer depends on which city hall.

law.moj.gov.tw ↗travel.tycg.gov.tw ↗

🇧🇷How does Brazil mark Halloween? · Dia das Bruxas

In Brazil the day is usually called Dia das Bruxas, the day of the witches, with Halloween used interchangeably — but it does not exist on the federal calendar. The Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services issues one order a year listing every national holiday and every discretionary day off; for 2026 that is Portaria MGI nº 11.460 of 29 December 2025. October holds exactly two entries: 12 October, Our Lady of Aparecida, a national holiday, and 28 October, federal Public Servant's Day, a discretionary day off. The 31st is an ordinary working day, and no level of government closes for it. The date lives in English classes, private-school costume days, shopping centres and clubs. What makes Brazil worth reading closely is the next entry: the country never gave Halloween a day off, and then wrote a different festival onto the same date.

gov.br ↗camara.leg.br ↗

🇺🇸How does United States mark Halloween? · Halloween

Halloween is absent from 5 U.S.C. §6103, the section that names the legal public holidays: New Year's Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The federal government does not close — but it does regulate. The Food and Drug Administration treats decorative contact lenses, the ones marketed as Halloween lenses, as medical devices: any lens not prescribed by a doctor is illegal, and the agency names the places not to buy from, the Halloween store among them. The Consumer Product Safety Commission issues a fire alert telling households to keep candles and jack-o'-lanterns away from where children brush past, to avoid baggy or oversized costumes, and to choose flame-resistant fabrics. The hours, meanwhile, are municipal business. Covington, Kentucky has set official trick-or-treating at 6 to 8 p.m. by city ordinance since October 2018, standing every year unless the Board of Commissioners acts. Dublin, Ohio and much of Central Ohio follow the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission rule instead: when 31 October falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, trick-or-treat moves to the Thursday before; when it falls Monday to Thursday it stays on the 31st. Dublin's 2026 trick-or-treat night is therefore 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday 29 October — two days before Halloween. In the country most identified with the festival, the date itself is something a local government may move.

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govinfo.gov ↗fda.gov ↗

🇧🇷How does Brazil mark Halloween? · Dia do Saci

Dia do Saci falls on the same 31 October and was created against Halloween — the bills say so in their own words. Federal bill PL 2479/2003, from deputy Angela Guadagnin, and PL 2762/2003, from deputy Aldo Rebelo, presented on 11 December 2003 and attached to the first on 19 December, both proposed 31 October as the day of the Saci. The justification states that the choice of date is deliberate, because that is when Halloween is celebrated in the United States, a festival that draws more Brazilian children every year. The Chamber's Education and Culture Committee approved a substitute text with Chico Alencar as rapporteur, and there the file stops: the current status reads "attached to PL 2479/2003 — archived". The law that did pass is a state one. São Paulo's Lei nº 11.669 of 13 January 2004, promulgated by governor Geraldo Alckmin, runs to two articles; the first says only that the Day of the Saci is instituted, to be commemorated annually on 31 October. No day off — a name placed on the calendar. The idea came from Sosaci, the society of the Saci's friends in São Luiz do Paraitinga in the Paraíba valley, was turned into a bill by two town councillors and passed the municipal chamber unanimously before it travelled any higher.

al.sp.gov.br ↗camara.leg.br ↗

🇨🇳Does China have Halloween?

China gives Halloween no legal position at all. The Measures on Public Holidays for National Annual Festivals and Memorial Days were amended for the fourth time by State Council Order No. 795, promulgated on 10 November 2024 and in force from 1 January 2025. Article 2 lists seven holidays for all citizens — New Year's Day one day, Spring Festival four, Qingming one, Labour Day two, Dragon Boat one, Mid-Autumn one, National Day three. Article 3 lists four partial ones: half a day for women on 8 March, half a day for young people on 4 May, a full day for children under fourteen on 1 June, half a day for serving soldiers on 1 August. Article 5 names the commemorative days that carry no leave at all, and Article 4 hands the festivals of ethnic minorities to the local governments of the areas where they live. No foreign festival appears anywhere in the text. Halloween is therefore not excluded from the Chinese system so much as never written into it; where it exists is in the seasonal calendars of shopping malls, theme parks and bars. We found no official Chinese government statement about Halloween itself.

gov.cn ↗

🇮🇩Does Indonesia have Halloween?

Halloween is not on Indonesia's holiday list, and the way that list is built leaves no slot for it. Presidential Decision No. 8 of 2024, signed on 29 January 2024, consolidated rules that had been scattered across several earlier decrees and set sixteen public holidays for that year — Gregorian New Year, Isra Mikraj, Lunar New Year, Nyepi, Good Friday, Easter, Idulfitri, Labour Day, Ascension, Waisak, Pancasila Day, Iduladha, Islamic New Year, Independence Day, Maulid and Christmas. October contained none at all. For 2026 the instrument is a joint decree of three ministers — religious affairs, manpower, and administrative reform — numbered 1497/2025, 2/2025 and 5/2025 and issued on 19 September 2025, setting seventeen national holidays plus eight collective leave days. The list is built almost entirely from Islamic, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian religious dates plus dates of state; a structure like that has no place to put an imported secular festival. In practice Halloween lives in the malls, clubs and international schools of Jakarta and Bali. We found no statement on Halloween from the Indonesian central government.

setkab.go.id ↗jdih.kemenkoinfra.go.id ↗

🇮🇳Does India have Halloween?

India gives Halloween no official standing, and 31 October in India is already fully occupied by something else. That date is Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, National Unity Day, marking the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, independent India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister; the government declared it in 2014 and it has been observed every year since. The Press Information Bureau's account is specific: the day runs on the Run for Unity and the Unity March, with more than ten central ministries, state governments, schools, colleges and youth organisations taking part. It was on this day in 2015 that the Prime Minister announced the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme for structured contact between people of different regions. The 2025 edition was larger than usual because it fell on Patel's 150th birth anniversary, with the Prime Minister at Ekta Nagar, Kevadia, in Gujarat. So ask an Indian what 31 October is and the answer is usually a pledge and a run, not a costume night. Halloween does exist in India, but as private parties, bar promotions and English-medium school events in the big cities. We found no advisory or announcement on Halloween from any Indian government body.

static.pib.gov.in ↗