Planning time off sounds easy until you start staring at the calendar and counting weekdays. A long weekend here, a public holiday there, and suddenly your annual leave balance looks a little different. A Victoria Public Holiday can be particularly useful for stretching a few days of annual leave into a much longer break, especially around Easter and Christmas. If you work in Victoria, knowing the public holiday dates ahead of time can save some last-minute scrambling.

For 2026, Victoria has a mix of national holidays and state-specific dates. There is also the AFL Grand Final Friday and Melbourne Cup Day, which can make the Victorian calendar rather different from the one used in another state.

Victoria public holidays 2026

Here are the main Victorian public holiday dates for 2026:

Public holiday	Date
New Year’s Day	Thursday, 1 January
Australia Day	Monday, 26 January
Labour Day	Monday, 9 March
Good Friday	Friday, 3 April
Saturday before Easter Sunday	Saturday, 4 April
Easter Sunday	Sunday, 5 April
Easter Monday	Monday, 6 April
Anzac Day	Saturday, 25 April
King’s Birthday	Monday, 8 June
Friday before the AFL Grand Final	Friday, 25 September
Melbourne Cup Day	Tuesday, 3 November
Christmas Day	Friday, 25 December
Boxing Day	Saturday, 26 December
Additional Boxing Day holiday	Monday, 28 December

These are the published 2026 Victorian dates. The Melbourne Cup holiday applies across Victoria, although some non-metropolitan councils can arrange an alternative local holiday. Anzac Day falls on Saturday in 2026, and Victoria does not provide a replacement Monday holiday for it.

That last detail is easy to miss.

If you normally work Monday to Friday, a Saturday public holiday doesn’t suddenly become a free Monday. Victoria’s rules are a little different from some other states.

Planning annual leave around Victorian public holidays

This is where a public holiday calendar becomes genuinely useful.

Imagine you’ve got four days of annual leave available and want a decent break around Easter. Good Friday is 3 April and Easter Monday is 6 April in 2026. That already gives many employees a four-day Easter break without using annual leave for those public holiday dates.

If you take the ordinary working days around the holiday period as annual leave, the break can become much longer.

The same idea works around Christmas.

Christmas Day falls on Friday, 25 December, while Boxing Day falls on Saturday, 26 December. Victoria has an additional public holiday on Monday, 28 December because Boxing Day falls on a Saturday.

So, yes, checking the calendar before submitting a leave request can be worth the five minutes.

Victoria Labour Day public holiday

Labour Day falls on Monday, 9 March in 2026.

For many Monday-to-Friday employees, this is one of those easy long weekends. No annual leave request is needed for the Monday if it’s a day you normally work and the day is treated as a public holiday for your employment.

Some people use the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday around a Monday public holiday as an opportunity for a longer break. Others just enjoy the three-day weekend and stay home.

Honestly, both sound pretty good.

AFL Grand Final public holiday

Victoria has a public holiday on the Friday before the AFL Grand Final. In 2026, it falls on Friday, 25 September. The Victorian Government Gazette confirms the 2026 date.

This holiday is particularly relevant for employees working in Victoria, even if they’re not planning to watch the match itself.

The Friday can create another three-day weekend. If you add annual leave to the Thursday or the following Monday, you can extend the break without using a huge amount of leave.

Just check your workplace arrangements before making plans, particularly if your business operates on public holidays.

Melbourne Cup Day in Victoria

Melbourne Cup Day falls on Tuesday, 3 November 2026. It is a Victorian public holiday, although some regional areas may observe an alternative date arranged by the relevant non-metropolitan council.

For someone working a standard Monday-to-Friday schedule, this Tuesday holiday creates an interesting little gap.

Take Monday off and you could have four days away from work from Saturday through Tuesday. Take Wednesday to Friday instead and the break runs into the following weekend.

Which one makes more sense depends on what you’re doing. A short trip might work nicely with Monday off. A longer getaway could suit the other option.

Do public holidays count as annual leave?

Usually, an employee doesn’t have to use annual leave for a public holiday that occurs during their annual leave period if the public holiday is a day they would ordinarily have worked.

Fair Work says employees have a right to be absent from work on a public holiday, subject to the rules around reasonable requests to work. If a public holiday falls during annual leave, it generally isn’t counted as a day of annual leave.

So if you’re taking a week’s break and one of the weekdays is a public holiday, your leave balance isn’t normally reduced for that public holiday.

This is one of those small details that can make a noticeable difference over a year.

Public holiday pay in Victoria

Public holiday pay depends partly on your employment arrangement and whether you work that day.

Under the National Employment Standards, employees who have ordinary hours on a public holiday and don’t work may generally receive their base pay for those ordinary hours, provided they meet the relevant requirements. Different rules can apply to employees who actually work on the public holiday, including penalty rates under an applicable award or agreement.

Casual employees also have different arrangements, so it’s worth checking your award, enterprise agreement or employment terms rather than assuming everyone gets paid in exactly the same way.

A simple way to plan your leave

Start with the Victoria public holiday calendar.

Mark every public holiday on your work calendar. Then look for holidays that fall on Monday or Friday. Those are usually the easiest ones to pair with annual leave.

Next, check your current leave balance. A leave calculator can help if you’re not sure how many hours you’ve accumulated.

Then look at your roster.

This part matters because not everyone works Monday to Friday. If you work weekends, rotating shifts or irregular hours, a public holiday may affect you differently from someone sitting at a desk Monday through Friday.

Also check whether your workplace observes the Victorian holiday you’re looking at. Regional arrangements can matter, especially around Melbourne Cup Day.

A few minutes of planning can turn an ordinary calendar into several decent breaks throughout the year. And nobody is going to complain about having a little more time away from the alarm clock.

Just check the dates before you book anything. Flights have a funny habit of becoming very expensive once you’ve already asked for the leave.