Leave and holidays
National and festival holidays: the paid days your state sets
National and festival holidays are the days a business declares closed with pay for the year. Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti are observed across India. The festival days are drawn from the list a state notifies under its own holidays legislation or its Shops and Establishments Act, and each employer picks its year's calendar from that schedule and publishes it.
Last reviewed: September 2026
Also called: national holidays, festival holidays, NFH, declared holidays, paid holidays, holiday list
In plain English
These are the days the office or the shop shuts for a national day or a festival. Staff are paid without coming in, and the list is fixed at the start of the year.
How it works in detail
The holiday calendar is published in advance and belongs on the notice board where staff can read it. How many days a business has to give, and which of them nobody may work through, is decided by the state. A firm with an office in one state and a site in another can end up running two calendars in the same payroll. Confirm the count and the compulsory days for each state you operate in with your consultant.
Festival dates move with the calendar, so last year's list is a starting point and never a copy. Businesses that cannot shut, a shop through a festival season or a site under a deadline, keep people working and then either declare a replacement day off or pay for the day under the terms that cover them. Settle that in writing before the season starts.
A worked example
The setup
For example Kavita joins on 12 January on INR 21,700 a month. Her employer counts the 31 calendar days of January, and 26 January is a declared holiday.
The calculation
INR 21,700 / 31 = INR 700 per calendar day. She is paid from 12 to 31 January, which is 20 days including the holiday, so 20 x INR 700 = INR 14,000. Dropping the holiday from her count pays INR 13,300, leaving her INR 700 short.The result
Kavita is paid INR 14,000 for her part month. Her slip shows 20 days paid, with 26 January sitting inside them and no separate line for it.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the holiday for someone who joined or left mid-month. A declared holiday inside the days a person was on the rolls is paid, the same as any other day in that stretch.
- Reusing last year's calendar without checking the fresh state notification. National days hold their dates, festival days do not, and a wrong date means the shop opens on a day meant to be shut.
- Leaving a holiday out of the attendance calendar altogether. Every employee then shows as absent for that day, and somebody has to correct a full page of records before the salary run.
How VTClock handles it
Holidays are part of the setup a business configures, alongside offices and the workweek. Monthly salary then builds from attendance, holidays, weekly offs and approved leave. VTClock does not supply your state's list.
Frequently asked questions
Who decides which festivals my business has to close for?
The state does, through the schedule it notifies for the year, and the employer chooses its own calendar from within that schedule. A handful of days are usually compulsory and the rest are picked by the business, often after asking the team which festivals actually matter to them. Because the notification is issued afresh each year, ask your consultant to confirm this year's schedule for your state before you print the calendar.
Can we run two different holiday calendars for two branches?
Yes, and if the branches sit in different states you may have no choice, because each state notifies its own schedule and its own compulsory days. Keep one calendar per location, publish each one where that team works, and make sure the payroll for each branch reads its own list. Trouble starts when the head office calendar is applied to a site a thousand kilometres away.
What do we do if we need staff to work on a declared holiday?
The options are a replacement day off or payment for the day, and which of those is allowed depends on the state rule covering your establishment and on the day itself, since some days may not be worked through at all. Get your consultant to tell you what applies before the festival, agree it with the staff who will be in, and record who worked and what they were given back.
Do we pay a declared holiday to a worker on daily wages?
It depends on the law covering that category of work and on the terms agreed with the crew, and it varies between states and trades. Some daily wage arrangements carry paid national holidays, others price the day into the wage rate itself. This is one to settle with your consultant and then say out loud to the crew, because an unspoken assumption here turns into a dispute on the day the site is shut.
Related terms
- Weekly offA weekly off is the rest day in each week on which an employee is not required to work.
- Comp offComp off, short for compensatory off, is a paid day away from work given to an employee who worked on a day they were entitled to keep free, such as a weekly off or a declared...
- Payable daysPayable days are the number of days a monthly salary is spread across, and the number of days in a given month the employee is actually paid for.
- Loss of payLoss of pay, usually written LOP, is a day an employee is absent with no leave balance or approval to cover it, so the employer pays nothing for that day.
- Pro-rata salaryPro-rata salary is the share of a monthly salary an employee earns when they are on the payroll for only part of the month, or on two different salary rates inside it.
- Attendance registerAn attendance register is the day-by-day record of who was present, absent, late or on leave across a wage period.
Modules that touch this
- AttendanceGeofenced check-in and check-out near assigned offices, with shift grace, late marks and overnight shifts handled for you.
- SalaryMonthly pay builds from attendance fractions, holidays, weekly offs and approved leave, so there are no side calculations.
- Salary slipsBranded, printable slips with earnings, an attendance summary and advance recovery. Staff see the same figures you print.
See how VTClock handles national and festival holidays
Tell us how your team is paid and where attendance is recorded today. We will show you what the module does with it.