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Public Holidays and Bank Holidays for Lebanon

The list of Lebanon 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

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06 Dec 2008 (Ya Libnan-Beirut) Yesterday afternoon, Lebanon's Prime Minister’s office issued a memorandum declaring a three-day public holiday for Eid al-Adha, from Monday, December 8, until Wednesday, December 10, 2008, instead of the usual 2-day public holiday. • 15 Jul 2008 (Reuters + Haaretz) Late this afternoon, the Lebanese government announced that tomorrow, Wednesday, July 16, 2008, will be a national public holiday to celebrate the recent agreement whereby Israel is to free five Hezbollah prisoners in exchange for two of it soldiers, captured in 2006. • 23 May 2008 (Middle East Times) President-elect, Gen. Michel Suleiman, has agreed with Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri, to declare Monday, May 26, 2008, a one-off national public holiday to celebrate the election on Sunday of Lebanon's next President, hence ending a political stalemate that had left Lebanon without a President since November 2007. • 09 Feb 2008 (The Daily Star) Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, has declared February 14, 2008, a one-off public holiday, on account of the rally that will take place on the third anniversary of the slaying of former Premier Rafik Hariri. • 28 Jan 2008 (The New York Times) Prime Minister Fouad Siniora declared Monday, January 28, 2008, a national day of mourning, closing schools and universities for the day. • 20 Sep 2007 (The Daily Star) Prime Minister Fouad Siniora announced that today's informal day of mourning following the assassination of Antoine Ghanem will be followed, tomorrow, Friday, September 21, 2007, by an official day of national mourning. • 26 Jun 2007 (The Daily Star) Lebanon's Ministerial Cabinet met and voted to cancel all 3 changes to Lebanon public holidays voted upon in December 2006, and gazetted late last week • 25 Jun 2007 (Private Source) After a groundswell of protests, Good Friday was re-instated as a public holiday in Lebanon. • 24 Jun 2007 (The Daily Star) The Ministerial Cabinet of Lebanon finally gazetted the changes to Lebanon public holidays voted upon last December. These include the cancellation of Good Friday, the addition of the Monday after Easter, and the reduction of Eid al Adha from 2 to 1 day. • 14 Jun 2007 (Libnanews) The Lebanese government declared Thursday, June 14, 2007, a day of national mourning, following the assasination of anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker, Walid Eido, and nine other people. • 14 Jul 2003 (Lebanon Wire-Beirut) The Government of Lebanon has added Orthodox Christmas to the list of official public holidays in Lebanon. • More News Updates For the full version of the summarized news items above, and older news items not displayed above, go to the Lebanon 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 Lebanon are regulated by the Lebanese Labour Code (Loi du 23 septembre 1946 portant Code du Travail, dans sa teneur modifiée), as amended by the Loi du 30 avril 1959 sur la Fête du travail (which made May 1st a public holiday) and the Loi du 21 novembre 1963 portant obligation de chômer dans tous les établissements commerciaux et industriels à l'anniversaire de l'indépendance (which made Independence Day a full national public holiday). • Weekends: • The Christian communities and most Muslim areas observe Saturday and Sunday weekends. • Some Sunni, most Druze and almost all the Shi'a communities observe Thursday and Friday weekends. • Government offices close on Saturday afternoon and Sunday all day. • Banks are closed on Sundays • Shops are often open 7 days a week . • The new Lebanese law relating to public holidays was signed by the President of Lebanon and gazetted on 6th October 2005. In September 2005, the Government approved a draft decree that aimed at reducing the number of public holidays celebrated in Lebanon. • Other Sources of Information For information not covered here, see the following specialized websites: Central Bank of Lebanon (Lebanon 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).

Observance : Any entry in the Observance column indicates that, in Lebanon, the holiday may be regional or non-official or limited to certain religious and/or linguistic groups, or begin at a time other than midnight. Note that religious holidays are included only if they are national public holidays, or if the national labour code has specific holiday allowances for employees of specific religions. For more information, see our pages on the religious calendars of the world.

Religious Holidays : Public holidays in Lebanon 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 Lebanon 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 Lebanon, 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 Lebanon, before planning any trip to Lebanon. For last-minute updates to worldwide public holidays, visit our blog or subscribe to our free email newsletters.