Holidays in Panama: Public Holidays and Observances

Overview

Panama’s public-holiday year carries 11 fixed-date national holidays plus two moveable holidays tied to the Easter cycle. The fixed-date holidays fall on the same calendar day each year; the two moveable holidays (Carnival Tuesday and Good Friday) shift with the date of Easter Sunday and therefore move year to year. The holidays are declared by decree, and the full official list is published by the Ministerio de Trabajo y Desarrollo Laboral (MITRADEL) each year.^[6]

The single most important cluster is the Fiestas Patrias in November, when five public holidays fall within a single 26-day window (November 3, 4, 5, 10, and 28). The cluster carries the heaviest domestic tourism traffic of the year, and “expect a lot of movement to the countryside, especially on the 3, 4 and 5 of November when most hotels get full.”^[6]

The Fixed-Date National Holidays

The 11 fixed-date national holidays, in chronological order through the year, are:^[6]

A few notes on each:

• January 1: New Year’s Day. Standard public holiday; banks and government offices closed.
• January 9: Martyrs’ Day. Commemorates the January 9, 1964 anti-American flag riots (the “Flag Incident”) in which Panamanian students were killed in confrontations with Canal Zone residents and U.S. military personnel. The date is a national holiday and a politically loaded anniversary.
• May 1: Labour Day. Standard Labour Day; banks, government, and most private businesses closed.
• November 3: Separation Day. Marks the November 3, 1903 separation of Panama from Colombia. Together with November 28 (Independence from Spain) it is one of the two founding dates of the Panamanian state.
• November 4: Flag Day. Celebrates the flag, coat of arms, and national anthem. The day is a holiday only for public agencies and schools; most private-sector workers do not get it off. Wikipedia notes that “November 4 is a work day but most people compensate by working extra hours to be able to take it off.”^[6]
• November 5: Colon Day. Marks the Separation of Colón from Colombia, where the last Colombian troops remained after the rest of the country had separated.
• November 10: Primer Grito de Independencia de la Villa de Los Santos. Celebrates the November 10, 1821 uprising in La Villa de Los Santos, the first call for independence from Spain. The holiday is mainly celebrated in La Villa and is the civic anchor for the same town that hosts the Corpus Christi diablicos in May or June.
• November 28: Independence Day from Spain. Commemorates Panama’s 1821 independence from Spain (as part of the larger Gran Colombia).
• December 8: Mother’s Day. Public holiday on the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception. One of the highest-volume flower-shop and restaurant days of the year.
• December 20: National Mourning Day. Commemorates the December 20, 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause). Politically loaded anniversary.
• December 25: Christmas Day. Standard public holiday.

The Fiestas Patrias Cluster

The five November holidays are collectively called the Fiestas Patrias (“National Holidays” or “Fatherland Holidays”), and they generate the heaviest domestic tourism movement of the year.^[6] The cluster brackets two distinct historical moments: the November 3 separation from Colombia in 1903, which sits within the broader U.S.-backed independence project, and the November 28, 1821 independence from Spain (as part of Gran Colombia), which sits within the early-19th-century Latin American independence wave.^[6]

The cluster compresses three civic events that are sometimes confused:

• The separation from Colombia in 1903 is the founding of the modern Republic of Panama and is commemorated on November 3 (Separation Day) and November 5 (Colon Day, the province that held out longest).
• The independence from Spain in 1821 is the founding of Panama as part of Gran Colombia and is commemorated on November 28 (Independence Day).
• The Primer Grito de Independencia on November 10, 1821 is the local Azuero version of the same independence story, the uprising in La Villa de Los Santos that prefigured the broader independence.

The Primer Grito is the holiday that carries the strongest regional character: it is mainly celebrated in La Villa de Los Santos, and the November 10 events in the town include school parades, civic ceremonies, and the same procession route that runs the Carnival queens in February.^[6]

The Moveable Holidays: Carnival Tuesday and Good Friday

Two public holidays are tied to the Easter cycle and shift year to year:^[6]

• Carnival Tuesday. The Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, marking the end of the four-day Carnival celebration. The four days run from Friday to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.^[5]
• Good Friday. The Friday before Easter Sunday, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus.

Both are declared as public holidays by MITRADEL each year. Wikipedia gives examples of the shifting dates: 2023’s Carnival Tuesday fell February 21 with Ash Wednesday February 22 and Good Friday April 7; 2024’s Ash Wednesday fell February 14 with Good Friday March 29; 2025’s Good Friday fell April 18.^[6]

Because Carnival Tuesday and Good Friday move with Easter, the exact dates for any given year must be confirmed against MITRADEL’s annual calendar. Easter itself is determined by the computus (the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox), so the dates can vary by more than a month between the earliest possible Easter (March 22) and the latest (April 25).

How Holidays Affect Business Hours

Panama’s labour law (Código de Trabajo) requires employers to pay premium rates for work performed on national holidays. The practical consequences for visitors and residents are:

• Banks and government offices. Closed on all 13 public holidays (11 fixed + 2 moveable). Plan government paperwork around the holiday calendar.
• Most private businesses. Closed on the major holidays (Carnival Tuesday, Good Friday, January 1, May 1, November 3, November 5, November 28, December 25) and reduced hours on the rest. Tourist-facing businesses (restaurants, hotels, tour operators) typically stay open on all but the most family-oriented holidays.
• Supermarkets and convenience stores. Closed on Carnival Tuesday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day; reduced hours on most other holidays. The main exception is the 24-hour supermarket chains (e.g., Super 99, Riba Smith), which often run reduced hours on holidays.
• Public transport. Intercity buses run on a holiday schedule on the major holidays, with reduced service on Carnival Tuesday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day. Metro de Panama typically runs on a Sunday schedule on the major holidays.
• Airports. Tocumen International Airport does not close for public holidays, but the holiday periods (especially the Fiestas Patrias cluster and the Christmas week) generate heavy domestic and international traffic.

The most operationally important single holiday is probably Carnival Tuesday, because the four-day Carnival window funnels enormous tourist and internal-migration traffic into the Azuero and Panama City simultaneously. The second-most-important is the November Fiestas Patrias cluster, which stretches business closures across five separate days within a single month.

Tourism and the Holiday Calendar

For tourism planning, the holiday year sorts into three tiers:

• Tier 1 (highest domestic tourism traffic): The Fiestas Patrias cluster in November, the Carnival four-day window in February or March, Holy Week in April (not all days are public holidays but the cluster effect is real), and the Christmas week.
• Tier 2 (single-day tourism events): Independence Day (November 28), Separation Day (November 3), Mother’s Day (December 8), Christmas Day.
• Tier 3 (mostly historical or political anniversaries): Martyrs’ Day (January 9), National Mourning Day (December 20), Flag Day (November 4, not a private-sector holiday).

Tourism-facing businesses (hotels, tour operators, restaurants) usually price for Tier 1 holidays and apply higher minimum-stay requirements and dynamic pricing around them. For budget travel, the right approach is to plan around the Tier 2 and Tier 3 dates and use the Tier 1 dates for domestic-tourism-heavy events where the local rhythm is itself the attraction.

How to Verify the Calendar

The official source for Panama’s public-holiday calendar is the Ministerio de Trabajo y Desarrollo Laboral (MITRADEL), which publishes the holiday decree each year in the Gaceta Oficial. For verification:

• Confirm the specific date of Carnival Tuesday and Good Friday for any given year against MITRADEL’s annual calendar.
• For dates that fall on a Sunday, check whether the holiday rolls to Monday (Panama’s labour law rolls most holidays to Monday if they fall on a Sunday, but the rule is not universal; verify case by case).
• For the specific dates of the Fiestas Patrias dates that fall on a Thursday or Tuesday, watch for the puente (bridge-day) effect, where the day between the holiday and the weekend is treated as an unofficial holiday by many private-sector workers.

The Wikipedia article on Public holidays in Panama lists the fixed-date holidays and gives sample years’ Carnival and Good Friday dates, but the article should not be treated as authoritative for any given year.^[6]

Related Reading

For the festival events that surround the public holidays, see Panama Festivals and Events Calendar. For the Catholic religious-festival layer underneath the holiday calendar, see Religious Traditions: Black Christ, Semana Santa. For Carnival as the moveable-holiday anchor, see Carnival in Panama.

Last reviewed: 2026-07-03