Public Holidays in Côte d'Ivoire: Check This Table Before Planning a Business Trip

The public holidays of Côte d'Ivoire (in West Africa, French-speaking, the world's largest cocoa producer) include Christian feasts, Islamic festivals and national commemorations, and there are more of them than many Asian visitors expect. To complicate matters, several of the dates move every year. Going through this table before planning a trip, a contract signing or an event can save you many a wasted journey.

Public holidays at a glance

Ivorian public holidays are set by Decree No. 205 of 1996, as amended by Decree No. 371 of 2011. They are summarised below:

Sunday carry-over: if National Day, Labour Day, Eid al-Fitr, Tabaski or Christmas falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is also a holiday. The decree makes no such provision for the other holidays. In 2026, for example, All Saints' Day (1 November) and National Peace Day (15 November) both fall on a Sunday, and the decree grants no substitute day for them.

Two further points are worth noting. First, the decree specifies that National Day and Labour Day are days off "with normal pay". Second, the holiday provisions are preceded by the clause "unless a collective agreement provides more favourable terms", which means that individual sectors or companies may grant more holidays than the legal minimum, so it is still necessary to check your partners' calendars.

Actual dates in 2026

The table below lists some of the 2026 dates that have been announced and can be verified, to give you a feel for how these holidays are spread across the year:

How to estimate the Islamic holidays

The Islamic calendar is lunar: each month begins with the sighting of the new moon and lasts 29 or 30 days, so a year is about 354 to 355 days, roughly 11 days shorter than the Gregorian year. As a result, each Islamic festival falls about 11 days earlier in the Gregorian calendar each year.

Using the 2026 dates above and the "about 11 days earlier each year" rule, you can roughly estimate when these holidays will fall the following year. And because the four Islamic holidays are fixed relative to one another (each falls in a specific month of the Islamic calendar), they move earlier "together"; over a few years the whole group can shift from spring to winter.

Bear in mind, however: an estimate is only good for working out which weeks to avoid; the final date is whatever is officially announced. For the 2026 Maouloud holiday, for example, one date-listing website gave 26 August, but the Ministry of Labour's announcement of 21 August officially declared Tuesday 25 August the holiday, just a few days beforehand.

Practical tips for planning

• When planning a full year of visits, mark the fixed dates from the table in your calendar first.
• In the week around an Islamic holiday, try not to schedule anything that cannot be moved, such as contract signings or acceptance inspections, and leave room for flexibility.
• As a holiday approaches, watch for announcements from Ivorian official media or the relevant authorities to confirm the actual day off.

One line for Asian readers

Mark the fixed holidays early, estimate the Islamic ones with the "about 11 days earlier each year" rule, then wait for the official announcement to confirm, and you are unlikely to find doors closed in Côte d'Ivoire.

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References: CIVLII: Décret n° 96-205 relatif aux jours fériés (2023 version); Fraternité Matin: Maouloud 2026, le mardi 25 août déclaré férié et chômé; Le Petit Journal Abidjan: Jours fériés en Côte d'Ivoire; Al Jazeera: Islamic New Year and the different calendars around the world