Production calendar for 2026: official weekends and holidays

The Russian government has already approved a schedule of working days and weekends for 2026, allowing citizens and businesses to plan vacations and business activities in advance. About when to rest and work — in the material of Izvestia.

How the production calendar is formed in 2026

The official draft of the production calendar was developed by the Ministry of Labor and has already passed all necessary approvals. The basis for its formation, as in previous years, was the rule on postponing weekends that coincide with non-working holidays. This allows you to avoid "falling out" of the rest days schedule and rationally distribute them throughout the year.

New Year's holidays and May holidays, which traditionally form the longest periods of uninterrupted rest for Russians, became key reference points for drawing up the schedule. The approved structure of the year guarantees the preservation of 14 official non-working holidays established by the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.

New Year's Holiday Marathon: how the year 2026 starts

In 2026, the New Year holidays for Russians will last for ten days — from January 1 to January 10 inclusive. Such a long rest will be possible due to the convenient location of the weekend. The holidays from January 2 to January 6, which are officially non-working days, fall in the middle of the week.

Saturday, January 3, coincides with the holiday date, so this day off will be postponed to Friday, May 8. Sunday, January 4, is a regular day off. As a result, employees will return to their work duties only on Monday, January 12, after receiving a full-fledged vacation marathon to recuperate after the holidays.

February breaks: from Defender of the Fatherland Day to International Women's Day

The next point of rest in the calendar will be Defender of the Fatherland Day, which on Monday, February 23, will give Russians another mini-vacation. The day off from Saturday, February 21, is traditionally postponed to another month to optimize the schedule.

In this case, this postponement will be carried out on Friday, May 1, which will further allow the formation of long May holidays. Thus, the rest period in February will be three consecutive days: February 21, 22 and 23. Following this, in two weeks, the International Women's Day weekend will begin — from Saturday, March 7, to Monday, March 9, inclusive.

May holidays: a strategy for extended rest

The spring of 2026 will delight employees with a particularly rational allocation of weekends. The Spring and Labor Day, celebrated on May 1, falls on a Friday. Due to the postponement of the weekend from January 3 to May 8 and from February 21 to May 1, Russians will receive a continuous rest lasting four days.

The weekend will last from May 1st to May 4th. They will be followed immediately by Victory Day, which is legally not postponed on Saturday, May 9. However, since this is an official non-working holiday, it will join the regular Sunday weekend on May 10th. As a result, May will have two rest periods: at the beginning and at the end of the first decade of the month.

Summer and November weekends

The summer months won't bring any surprises in terms of extra days off. Russia Day, celebrated on June 12, falls on a Friday, which will provide the standard three days off in a row — June 12, 13 and 14. This is a favorable combination of circumstances for the start of the summer vacation season or short summer trips.

In November, National Unity Day, which falls on Wednesday, November 4, will become a single holiday dividing the working week into two short parts. Such a "gap" is often used by citizens to take two days off in order to get a five-day continuous rest with minimal vacation time.

Working hours and vacation planning

According to the calculations of the Ministry of Labor, in 2026, with a standard five-day working week with two days off (Saturday and Sunday), the total number of working days will be 247. Accordingly, there will be 118 days for weekends and non-working holidays. The total working time will be 1,973 hours.

— With a 40-hour work week: 1,973 hours.

— With a 36-hour work week: 1775.4 hours.

— With a 24-hour work week: 1182.6 hours.

Such an early publication of the production calendar allows employees to strategically plan their next vacation right now, effectively combining it with official holiday weekends to increase the period of continuous rest.