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Public Holidays and Bank Holidays for Ethiopia

The list of Ethiopia bank holidays, national holidays and public holidays for 2008, comes from the Q++ Worldwide Public Holidays Database, the professional source of international public holidays long trusted by the world's foremost diary publishers. The information on this page is provided for private, non-professional, use. Qualified professionals can license data for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and beyond. For details, please visit our licensing information page or

 © 1989-2008 Alter Ego Services

16 Aug 2007 (BBC World) This year's Ethiopian New Year will see its calendar year change from 1999 to 2000, on September 12, 2007. Despite the fact that the 3rd millennium will actually begin on Ethiopian new year 2001 (ie. September 11, 2008), the millennium celebrations will occur this year. • More News Updates For the full version of the summarized news items above, and older news items not displayed above, go to the Ethiopia public holidays news and updates page, or worldwide public holidays news and updates page, or subscribe to one of our free email newsletters.

Governing Law: Official public holidays in Ethiopia are regulated by the Public Holidays and Rest Day (Amendment) Proclamation (No. 29 of 1996) which replaced the public holidays that were declared by the Soviet-backed regime in the Public Holidays and Rest Day Proclamation (No. 16 of 1975), itself repealing the Proclamation No. 151 (No. 16 of 1956). • Calendar Used: The calendar in use in Ethiopia is the Ethiopic calendar, and is used for most secular holidays. However, the dates of Christmas (Genna), Epiphany (Timket), and Easter, seem to be regulated by the Greek Orthodox calendar. • Timket, or the Epiphany using the Ethiopian calendar, commemorates Christ's baptism by Saint John in the Jordan River. Celebrations feature an enormous bath where thousands of people are blessed. Celebrations of a much less religious nature usually begin on the eve of Timket . • The May 28, Dergue Downfall Day, which commemorates the overthrow of the Dergue, led by Colonel Mengistu, who ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, replaced the Revolution Day public holiday which was abolished in 1996. • Revolution Day (September 12) celebrating the 1974 overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie, was a public holiday from 1975 to 1996, when it was abolished. This holiday nevertheless still appears in many online sources, because Ethiopian New Year, usually September 11, falls on September 12, the year before each western leap year, thus regularly leading credence to the continued celebration of Revolution Day on September 12 (in fact that holiday was also based on the Ethiopic calendar, and it moved to September 13 on the years when Ethiopian New Year moved to the 12th). • Other Sources of Information For information not covered here, see the following specialized websites: National Bank of Ethiopia (Ethiopia central bank), ASI Hot Spots (security-related world events: terrorist threats, political strife, strikes, criminal activity, aviation incidents and health outbreaks), CIA World Factbook (maps, demographic and economic statistics), Copp Clark (financial markets' trading hours, settlement holidays and currency non-clearing days), and the IFES Election Guide (information covering upcoming elections, referenda, electoral structures and past voter participation).

Religion of Specific Business Contacts : Some of the business contacts that you may be trying to meet in Ethiopia, may belong to a religious group that is not common in Ethiopia, and therefore which is not included in the above list of public holidays or bank holidays. To be safe, you should also verify that no major religious holidays coincides with any planned business trip to Ethiopia. For more information, see our pages on the religious calendars of the world.

Religious Holidays : Public holidays in Ethiopia that are based on certain religious calendars may be subject to local variations due to differing interpretations between different religious authorities, or to seemingly arbitrary changes in the date a holiday is celebrated because it conflicts with another holiday that is based on another calendar, or because the day of the holiday is deemed inauspicious (bad luck). To find out more about these uncertainties, see the footnote below, if any, for each specific religion.

Muslim Holidays : Muslim bank holidays, legal holidays and public holidays for Ethiopia were evaluated using the Umm al-Qura Calendar of Saudi Arabia which is used in Saudi Arabia and in most of the Persian Gulf States. Holidays may occur a day later in countries outside the Gulf region. The sunrises, sunsets, moon phases, moonrises and moonsets used in these calculations are based on the location of Mecca (latitude 21.42°N, longitude, 39.82°E, GMT+3 hours, no summer time rules). For more details on Muslim holidays, see Muslim Calendar Holidays. For Salat (prayer times) calculations, see our Freeware page.

Disclaimer
In many parts of the world, holidays are subject to arbitrary, last minute, changes by local authorities. While every effort has been made to present an accurate list of 2008 bank holidays, legal holidays and public holidays for Ethiopia, we cannot accept any responsibility for any error or omission in the data presented above. You are therefore advised to verify the above dates with the embassy or consulate of Ethiopia, before planning any trip to Ethiopia. For last-minute updates to worldwide public holidays, visit our blog or subscribe to our free email newsletters.