30 Days Off a Year — New Zealand’s Very Civilized Approach to Holidays

I wrote this in 2016 or 2017 during the two years I lived in New Zealand. Some details — prices, hours, what’s open — may have changed, but the experience and my love for this place haven’t.

One of the first things I latched onto when I started looking for work in New Zealand was the vacation time. New Zealand ranks 8th among OECD countries for paid vacation and holidays — the highest outside of continental Europe — with 30 days off per year. Coming from the US, where paid vacation isn’t federally mandated and two weeks is a typical starting point, this felt almost suspicious.

There are now 12 public holidays in New Zealand, up from 11 when I first moved there. More on the newest one in a moment.

Many companies effectively close up shop during Christmas, and plenty of corporations encourage — or outright require — non-essential employees to take time off during Christmas week. Since Christmas falls in summer here, this means much of the country takes a summer vacation at roughly the same time. As an American, the idea of a national collective summer break in December took some getting used to.

The public holidays are:

• New Year’s Day and the day after New Year’s Day — two days, because one is not enough.
• Waitangi Day (6 February) — marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.
• Good Friday and Easter Monday
• ANZAC Day (25 April) — commemorates all New Zealanders killed in war and honors returned servicemen and women.
• King’s Birthday — celebrates the monarch’s birthday, though not on their actual birthday. King Charles was born on 14 November but the holiday falls on the first Monday in June. Worth noting that this is a public holiday in New Zealand but not in the UK, which I find quietly funny.
• Matariki — the newest addition, first observed in 2022. Matariki is the Māori New Year, marked by the rise of the Matariki star cluster in the winter sky. The date changes each year based on the Māori lunar calendar and always falls on a Friday in June or July. It’s widely believed to be the only public holiday in the world based on an indigenous calendar — which is a genuinely remarkable thing for a country to do.
• Labour Day — commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to win that right, back in 1840.
• Christmas Day and Boxing Day — Boxing Day comes from the British tradition of giving servants and tradespeople a “Christmas box” the day after Christmas. It’s still very much a thing here.

Most shops are required to close on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, and the morning of ANZAC Day. This is interesting given that if a public holiday falls on a weekend, the following Monday becomes the observed day off — a system called Mondayisation that ensures nobody gets shortchanged. The trading restrictions on religious holidays are also worth noting given that 42% of Kiwis identify as irreligious. New Zealand is pragmatic about a lot of things but it holds onto the Easter closure rules.

The bottom line for anyone considering a move there: the work-life balance is genuinely different. Thirty days off, a culture that actually takes them, and now a holiday tied to the stars. Not bad.