No more asking your boss for a day off to get together with your relatives for the Lunar New Year celebrations. The Thai government has, for the first time in history, announced the Chinese New Year is among the new official government holidays for 2021. The statement came before the New Year on Dec 29 as a soft tool to support local tourism, which has been severely affected by the COVID-19 outbreaks, by bundling up holidays into long weekends.
Apart from the Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb 12, the government has also added three other holidays to the 2021 calendar: Apr 12, an extra Songkran holiday added to the annual Thai New Year break; Jul 27, a substitute holiday for the Buddhist Lent Day; and Sep 24, a day to commemorate the passing of Prince Mahidol, King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s grandfather.
This year also sees a surprising decentralizing move. Additionally, the government also there are also four new provincial holidays: Mar 26, a Buddhist holiday on which devotees go to temples to offer prayer according to the Lanna culture in the North; May 10, a cultural holiday for the annual Rocket Festival in the Northeastern provinces; Oct 6 for the Festival of the Tenth Month in the South; and Oct 21 on the end of Buddhist Lent period.
The substitute holiday for Chulalongkorn Memorial Day is also moved from Oct 25 to Oct 22.
Please note that these aforementioned holidays are government holidays, which apply to government organizations and agencies only. Holidays for banks, financial institutes, and private organizations might be different from these.