Victoria Public Holidays 2026: Full Calendar, Dates and How Melbourne Celebrates

Victoria has two public holidays no other state has: a Friday off before the AFL Grand Final, and Melbourne Cup Day. This guide covers every Victorian public holiday for 2026, exactly how Melbourne marks the big ones (with real locations), and the genuinely Victoria-only quirks that regularly confuse newcomers.

Full 2026 Victoria public holiday calendar

This is the complete list of Victoria’s gazetted public holidays for 2026.

Australia Day in Victoria: 26 January

Melbourne marks Australia Day with official flag-raising ceremonies, fireworks and family-friendly cultural events across the city, alongside citizenship ceremonies welcoming new Australians. Note that not every Victorian council holds an official Australia Day citizenship ceremony on 26 January itself – some inner-Melbourne councils have moved away from doing so, reflecting the broader national conversation about the date. For the full background on Australia Day’s history and that debate, see our Australia Day guide.

Anzac Day in Victoria: 25 April

Melbourne’s Dawn Service is held at the Shrine of Remembrance on St Kilda Road, starting at 5.30am – the time deliberately chosen to align with the hour of the original Gallipoli landing. It includes recitations, hymns, wreath-laying and an address by the Governor of Victoria, concluding around 6.30am, after which the public can enter the Shrine’s Sanctuary to place a poppy at the Stone of Remembrance. The Anzac Day Commemorative March steps off from Swanston Street near Federation Square at 9am, heading south along St Kilda Road to the Shrine, with a concluding ceremony at the Shrine Forecourt around noon.

Remember: unlike NSW, the ACT and WA, Victoria does not add an extra public holiday because Anzac Day falls on a Saturday in 2026. For the full history of Anzac Day, see our Anzac Day guide.

Labour Day and Moomba in Victoria: 9 March

Victoria’s Labour Day, on the second Monday in March, coincides with Melbourne’s Moomba Festival – Australia’s largest free community festival, running since 1955 and originally created to build community spirit in the years after the Second World War. Moomba runs across the Labour Day long weekend (5-9 March 2026) along the Yarra River at Birrarung Marr and Alexandra Gardens, and through the CBD, with a Monday street parade, the Birdman Rally on the river, carnival rides, live music and nightly fireworks – all free to attend.

Easter and King's Birthday in Victoria: 3-6 April and 8 June

Victoria observes all four Easter public holidays – Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday – the same as NSW and Queensland. For the full history of Easter in Australia, see our Easter in Australia guide. King’s Birthday falls on the second Monday in June, the same date as NSW, and functions mainly as a mid-year long weekend without a single major public event attached to it.

AFL Grand Final Friday: 25 September

The Friday before the AFL Grand Final is a public holiday found nowhere else in Australia. It was introduced by the Victorian Government in 2015, delivering on a promise made by then-Premier Daniel Andrews ahead of the 2014 state election, as a way to let fans enjoy the build-up to the season’s biggest match and support tourism and community events around it. Because it’s tied to the AFL fixture rather than a fixed calendar date, the exact date shifts a little each year, but it always falls in late September. The centrepiece event is the Grand Final Parade through the Melbourne CBD, where players from both competing teams ride through the streets on the backs of utes ahead of Saturday’s match at the MCG – one of the largest annual gatherings in the city.

Melbourne Cup Day: 3 November

Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday across metropolitan Melbourne, but many regional Victorian councils substitute it for their own local event day instead – a genuine point of confusion for newcomers who assume it’s a single uniform date across the whole state. For the full history of the race, the public holiday’s own separate origin story, famous Cup moments, and the exact 2026 regional substitution dates, see our dedicated Melbourne Cup Day guide.

Christmas and Boxing Day in Victoria: 25-28 December

Christmas Day (Friday 25 December 2026) is a quiet public holiday in Victoria, with most retail, banks and government services closed. Boxing Day (Saturday 26 December 2026) falls on a weekend, so Victoria adds an Additional Day public holiday on Monday 28 December. For the full history of Boxing Day, see our Boxing Day in Australia guide.

What's open, and what working on a public holiday means for pay

Most major retailers, banks and government offices close on Victorian public holidays, though large shopping centres and supermarkets in Melbourne’s CBD and tourist areas commonly stay open on all but Christmas Day and Anzac Day morning. Cafes, restaurants and attractions typically continue trading, often with a surcharge. On Grand Final Friday, most retail and hospitality businesses stay open as normal, since it functions more like a bonus public holiday than a general shutdown day.

If you work on a Victorian public holiday, you’re generally entitled to a penalty rate loading on top of your normal pay, with the exact rate set by your award or agreement. For a full breakdown, see our public holiday penalty rates guide.

Related guides

For the full national public holiday calendar and how other states compare, see our Australian public holidays guide, our NSW public holidays guide, our QLD public holidays guide and our WA public holidays guide. We also have dedicated guides to Australia Day, Anzac Day, Easter in Australia, Melbourne Cup Day and Boxing Day.

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