How does Japan mark Long Holiday Weeks?
ゴールデンウィーク
- Local date
- April 29, 2027–May 5, 2027
- When is it?
- 29 April (Showa Day) plus 3 May (Constitution Memorial Day), 4 May (Greenery Day) and 5 May (Children's Day); if any of those falls on a Sunday, one substitute holiday is added on the following non-holiday.
Nobody has to decide Japan's Golden Week each year. Article 2 of the Act on National Holidays (Act No. 178 of 1948) writes four dates straight into the statute — 29 April Showa Day, 3 May Constitution Memorial Day, 4 May Greenery Day, 5 May Children's Day — and those four are already crammed into a single week. Article 3(2) adds one more rule: when a national holiday falls on a Sunday, the nearest following day that is not itself a holiday becomes a holiday. In 2026, 3 May is a Sunday, so the Cabinet Office holiday table carries an extra line — "Holiday, 6 May, a holiday under Article 3(2)" — and Saturday 2 May through Wednesday 6 May is five days straight. In 2027 nothing of the kind happens: 29 April is a Thursday, and 3 to 5 May run Monday to Wednesday. No make-up work, no ministry announcement. Four dates sit in the statute, and the calendar does the rest.
シルバーウィーク
- Local date
- September 21, 2026–September 23, 2026
- When is it?
- From Respect-for-the-Aged Day, the third Monday of September, to the Autumnal Equinox Day; when exactly one day separates them, that day automatically becomes a holiday under Article 3(3) of the holiday act.
Silver Week is Golden Week's opposite: it does not happen every year. Respect-for-the-Aged Day is "the third Monday of September" and so moves between the 15th and the 21st. Autumnal Equinox Day takes the astronomical equinox day and moves between the 22nd and the 24th. Article 3(3) of the holiday act makes any non-holiday day with holidays on both sides a holiday — which happens only when the Monday lands on the 21st and the equinox on the 23rd, leaving the 22nd in between. The Cabinet Office's own explanatory page describes it as a holiday that appears irregularly, once every several years. 2026 is one of those years: 21 September Respect-for-the-Aged Day, 22 September holiday, 23 September Autumnal Equinox Day, joined to the weekend before for five days. In 2027 the Monday is the 20th and the equinox the 23rd, two days apart, and nothing happens. And the equinox itself only becomes official when the National Astronomical Observatory's almanac is published in the official gazette on 1 February of the preceding year; on the observatory's own published calculations, the next year that works is 2037.
What is this topic?
Seven places all end up with a run of consecutive days off, and not one of them builds it the same way. Japan's holiday act fills the gap by itself and nobody has to announce anything. China's State Council issues a notice every November that borrows weekends forward and takes them back afterwards as working Saturdays. Indonesia's joint leave is decided by three ministers together — and it is deducted from the worker's own annual leave. Taiwan rewrote its holiday law in 2025 and now only adds compensatory days, never borrowed ones. Brazil bridges with unnamed days declared by ministerial order that bind federal offices only. The United States moved five holidays to Mondays in 1968 and has done nothing since. India leaves it to the states, under a banking statute from 1881.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.