Cook Islands Public Holidays
Discover upcoming public holiday dates for Cook Islands and start planning to make the most of your time off.
The people of the Cook Islands celebrate 11 national holidays each year. Many of these holidays are the same as those celebrated in New Zealand.
Under the Public Holidays Act of 1999, and the Employment Relations Act of 2012, employees are entitled to receive a day off with pay for all nationally recognised holidays. If an employee is required to work on the holiday, they are to receive a pay rate of twice their normal wages for that day or payment for that day and another paid day off in lieu of the holiday.
The Office of the Prime Minister regulates the national holidays in the Cook Islands and retains the authority to add one-time holidays for special events. The Office has, in the past, added holidays throughout the year in order to extend weekend celebrations or to allow for voting.
The Prime Minister’s office will release the dates of official holidays at the end of each year for the upcoming year. Since some of these holidays are based on the lunar cycle and change in dates each year, the government requests that all employers acknowledge those days as holidays each year, regardless of what day they occur.
All holidays which occur on a Sunday are celebrated on the following Monday. Until 2012, Sunday was considered a holiday and people were not required to work on that day. However, it is now legal to work on Sundays. Since a majority of businesses still remain closed on Sundays because of tradition, all holidays are moved to the next working day for the benefit of the employees.