Korea Public Holidays 2027: Dates, Substitute Days, Long Weekends

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Last checked: 2026-10-23 (KST) · Sources: KASA, 2027 calendar notice (월력요항), June 29, 2026 · Regulations on Public Holidays of Government Offices (law.go.kr) · National Election Commission, election schedule board · What changed recently: an amendment of April 30, 2026 made Labor Day (May 1) and Constitution Day (July 17) public holidays for government offices, with substitute-day cover. Both fall on a Saturday in 2027, so each adds a Monday off.

Korea's 2027 calendar is already official. The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), which publishes the national calendar every year under the Astronomy Act, released the 2027 edition on June 29, 2026. It counts 72 public holidays for 2027 (Sundays are part of that count, as in every Korean calendar notice), and 119 days off for anyone on a Monday-to-Friday week.

The year has a quirk worth knowing early: nine holiday dates land on a Saturday or Sunday, and the substitute-holiday rule hands back seven weekdays for them, six of them Mondays. That produces ten breaks of three days or more. Memorial Day gets nothing back, and the reason is in the regulation, not in luck.

All 2027 public holidays at a glance

I read the KASA notice itself, not a holiday aggregator, and the table below follows it. The notice gives the traditional holidays as solar dates; for Buddha's Birthday, which it does not spell out, I cross-checked the lunar date against the lunar-solar table of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute: lunar April 8 falls on Thursday, May 13, 2027.

Date	Weekday	Holiday	Substitute day
Jan 1	Fri	New Year's Day	Not applicable
Feb 6	Sat	Day before Seollal	None (see below)
Feb 7	Sun	Seollal (Lunar New Year)	Tue, Feb 9
Feb 8	Mon	Day after Seollal	Not applicable
Mar 1	Mon	Independence Movement Day	Not applicable
May 1	Sat	Labor Day	Mon, May 3
May 5	Wed	Children's Day	Not applicable
May 13	Thu	Buddha's Birthday	Not applicable
Jun 6	Sun	Memorial Day	None
Jul 17	Sat	Constitution Day	Mon, Jul 19
Aug 15	Sun	Liberation Day	Mon, Aug 16
Sep 14	Tue	Day before Chuseok	Not applicable
Sep 15	Wed	Chuseok	Not applicable
Sep 16	Thu	Day after Chuseok	Not applicable
Oct 3	Sun	National Foundation Day	Mon, Oct 4
Oct 9	Sat	Hangeul Day	Mon, Oct 11
Dec 25	Sat	Christmas Day	Mon, Dec 27

That is seven substitute days: Feb 9, May 3, Jul 19, Aug 16, Oct 4, Oct 11 and Dec 27.

The count, recalculated

KASA's own arithmetic is short. Sundays give 52 days. National holidays, substitute days and the newly added Labor Day and Constitution Day give 24 more, for 76. Four of those holidays fall on a Sunday (Seollal on Feb 7, Memorial Day on Jun 6, Liberation Day on Aug 15, National Foundation Day on Oct 3), so the real total is 72.

I recalculated the 24 from the table above and got the same figure: 17 holiday dates plus 7 substitute days. For a five-day week, KASA adds 52 Saturdays and removes the five holidays that land on a Saturday (Feb 6, May 1, Jul 17, Oct 9, Dec 25), which leaves 119 days off.

Figure	2026	2027
Public holidays (calendar notice)	70	72
Public holidays after the Labor Day and Constitution Day change	72	72
Days off on a five-day week	120 (KASA's corrected figure)	119

The 2026 column comes from the same 2027 notice, which explains that the 2026 calendar was published with 70 holidays and 118 days off, and that adding Labor Day and Constitution Day in April 2026 lifted the real 2026 total to 120 days off.

How the substitute-holiday rule works

The rule sits in Article 3 of the Regulations on Public Holidays of Government Offices (Presidential Decree No. 36290, amended April 30, 2026). I traced each 2027 substitute day back to the article's three cases, and they fall into three groups.

Holiday group	Substitute day when it falls on…	2027 result
National holidays (Mar 1, Jul 17, Aug 15, Oct 3, Oct 9), Buddha's Birthday, Labor Day, Children's Day, Christmas	Saturday or Sunday	Six Mondays off: May 3, Jul 19, Aug 16, Oct 4, Oct 11, Dec 27
Seollal and Chuseok (all three days of each)	Sunday only	Feb 9 for Seollal; Chuseok is midweek, nothing added
New Year's Day, Memorial Day, election days	Never	Memorial Day (Sun, Jun 6) gives no day back

The substitute is "the first non-holiday after the holiday." That is why Seollal's substitute is Tuesday, Feb 9, not Monday: Monday, Feb 8 is already the day after Seollal. A third case in the same article covers two holidays landing on the same weekday, which does not happen in 2027.

Two details catch people out. First, the Saturday before Seollal (Feb 6) does not trigger anything, because the Seollal and Chuseok days only earn a substitute when they hit a Sunday. Second, the regulation's addenda set the start dates of the 2026 change: the decree took effect on May 1, 2026, while the clause that brings all national holidays (and so Constitution Day) onto the list took effect on May 11, 2026.

Looking one week past 2027: January 1, 2028 is a Saturday, and New Year's Day is outside the substitute rule, so no extra day follows it.

Long weekend planner for 2027

KASA lists ten breaks of three days or more for a five-day week. The right-hand column is my own arithmetic from the calendar, not KASA's: the annual-leave days that turn a break into a longer one.

Break	Days	Why	With leave
Jan 1-3 (Fri-Sun)	3	New Year's Day + weekend	None needed
Feb 6-9 (Sat-Tue)	4	Seollal + substitute Tuesday	Take Feb 10-12 (3 days): 9 days, Feb 6-14
Feb 27-Mar 1 (Sat-Mon)	3	Weekend + Independence Movement Day	None needed
May 1-3 (Sat-Mon)	3	Labor Day + substitute Monday	Take May 4 (1 day): 5 days, May 1-5 with Children's Day
Jul 17-19 (Sat-Mon)	3	Constitution Day + substitute Monday	None needed
Aug 14-16 (Sat-Mon)	3	Liberation Day + substitute Monday	None needed
Sep 14-16 (Tue-Thu)	3	Chuseok	Take Sep 13 and Sep 17 (2 days): 9 days, Sep 11-19
Oct 2-4 (Sat-Mon)	3	National Foundation Day + substitute Monday	Take Oct 5-8 (4 days): 10 days, Oct 2-11
Oct 9-11 (Sat-Mon)	3	Hangeul Day + substitute Monday	Joined to the row above
Dec 25-27 (Sat-Mon)	3	Christmas + substitute Monday	None needed

Buddha's Birthday on Thursday, May 13 is not on KASA's list because it makes no three-day break by itself; one day of leave on Friday, May 14 gives May 13-16. For travel, the busiest weeks will be Seollal, the May 1-5 stretch and Chuseok. Our Seollal 2027 guide covers the February holiday in detail, including how holiday train booking worked last time and what changed on October 1, 2026.

What closes on a public holiday

Government offices, including immigration offices, close on every date in the first table and on every substitute day; that is what the regulation is for. Deadlines keep running regardless. If an alien registration or visa extension deadline lands next to a long weekend, book early; our alien registration guide explains how the 90-day count works.

Private employers follow the same list. Article 55(2) of the Labor Standards Act requires paid holidays "prescribed by Presidential Decree," and Article 30(2) of its Enforcement Decree defines them as the holidays in Article 2 of the government-office regulation (Sundays excluded) plus the Article 3 substitute days. The phase-in schedule in Article 55 reached workplaces with five or more regular employees on January 1, 2022. The same paragraph lets an employer swap a holiday for another working day by written agreement with employee representatives, so check your own contract.

Banks close their branches on public holidays, and payments due on those days move to the next business day. The Financial Services Commission's press release for Seollal 2026 (for release on February 9, 2026) shows the pattern: card bills and automatic payments falling in the Feb 14-18 holiday were moved to Feb 19, and 24 mobile or flexible branches ran during the break. A 2027 version of that release is normally issued only days before each long holiday.

Palaces and museums keep their own calendars. The palaces have weekly closing days and have opened free over recent Seollal and Chuseok holidays, and the National Museum of Korea lists New Year's Day, Seollal and Chuseok as its holiday closing days; see our Chuseok 2026 palaces and museums guide and the National Museum of Korea 2026 guide for how those notices read.

Is there an election holiday in 2027

No regular one. The government-office regulation makes the voting day of a term-expiry election a public holiday, and Article 34 of the Public Official Election Act fixes those days by each office's term. I verified the National Election Commission's election schedule board on October 23, 2026:

Election	Date on the NEC board	Public holiday?
22nd National Assembly election	Apr 10, 2024	Yes (held)
21st presidential election	Jun 3, 2025	Yes (held)
9th nationwide local elections	Jun 3, 2026	Yes (held)
4th nationwide cooperative heads election	Mar 3, 2027	No; the board files it as a commissioned election (위탁선거) for cooperative heads, not a public election

The board lists nothing else for 2027. By-elections are not term-expiry elections, so they do not create a holiday either. The government can still declare a one-off temporary holiday by Cabinet decision (Article 4 of the regulation); none had been announced for 2027 as of this check.

FAQ

How many public holidays does Korea have in 2027? 72 including Sundays, by the official calendar notice of June 29, 2026. Leaving out the 52 Sundays, that is 20 weekday or Saturday holidays. On a Monday-to-Friday week that means 119 days off.

What are the substitute holidays in Korea in 2027? Feb 9 (Seollal), May 3 (Labor Day), Jul 19 (Constitution Day), Aug 16 (Liberation Day), Oct 4 (National Foundation Day), Oct 11 (Hangeul Day) and Dec 27 (Christmas).

Is Memorial Day 2027 a substitute holiday? No. Memorial Day falls on Sunday, June 6, and the regulation does not give it a substitute day.

Is Labor Day a public holiday in Korea now? Yes. Since May 1, 2026 it is on the government-office holiday list. In 2027 it falls on a Saturday, so Monday, May 3 is the substitute.

When are Seollal and Chuseok in 2027? Seollal is Sunday, February 7 (holiday Feb 6-9 with the substitute day). Chuseok is Wednesday, September 15 (holiday Sep 14-16).

Is there an election day holiday in Korea in 2027? No regular one. The next presidential, National Assembly and local elections are not due in 2027, and the NEC's schedule board lists only a cooperative heads election on March 3, 2027, which is not a public holiday.

What we could not confirm

• The full 2027 calendar table (월력요항) is attached to the KASA notice as an HWP file that we could not open; this page relies on the notice text and the regulation.
• Bank, post office and palace notices for each 2027 holiday are published days or weeks before each holiday, not yet.
• Holiday train booking dates for 2027 were not checked for this page; the Seollal 2027 guide tracks them.
• Any temporary holiday the government might add later in 2027.

Related on this site

• Seollal 2027 in Korea: Feb 6-9 Holiday, Closures, Booking Windows
• Korea in November 2026: No Holidays, Suneung Day, What to Plan
• Korea in October 2026: Holidays, What Closes, and Booking Dates
• National Museum of Korea 2026: Free Entry, Hours, Paid Exhibits
• Korea Visa Extension 2026: HiKorea Fees, Deadlines, Documents

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