What Are The Public Holidays in Georgia in 2026?

List of Public Holidays in Georgia (2026)

Georgia sets public holidays at the national level, and these dates apply across the entire country. Use the table below to plan staffing, leave, and payroll for your Georgian team in 2026.

Do Employers Have to Provide Paid Leave on Public Holidays?

Yes, under Georgian labour law, public holidays listed in the Labour Code and related regulations are generally treated as paid non-working days for employees, unless the employment contract or a collective agreement clearly provides for work on those days with appropriate compensation. In practice, your company should treat these 17 days in 2026 as paid days off for full-time employees, provided the holiday falls on a day they would normally work.

If your operations require staff to work on a public holiday, you must either pay a premium rate or provide compensatory rest in line with the Labour Code and any contractual terms. The law does not set a single nationwide percentage uplift for all situations, so many employers adopt at least double pay or a day off in lieu to stay on the safe side and remain competitive.

Part-time and shift workers are usually entitled to paid public holidays on a pro rata basis, depending on their normal working schedule. If a holiday falls on a non-working day for a particular employee, Georgian law does not automatically require an additional paid day off, but many employers choose to offer a substitute day as a matter of policy to support fairness and retention.

Public holidays are national in Georgia, with no separate regional or municipal public holiday regimes that change the statutory list. However, some localities and sectors may observe additional traditional or religious days as customary leave, which you can recognise through company policy rather than as statutory holidays.

Legal Penalties for Not Providing Paid Holiday Leave

Failing to respect public holiday rules in Georgia can expose your company to administrative fines and orders to compensate affected employees. The Labour Inspection Service and other competent authorities can investigate complaints, review employment contracts and time records, and require you to correct underpayments or unlawful scheduling practices.

Where inspectors find that employees were required to work on public holidays without proper pay or compensatory rest, they can impose financial penalties per violation and per employee, and may require back pay with interest. Repeated or intentional non-compliance can lead to higher fines and closer monitoring of your operations.

Common employer mistakes include treating public holidays as normal working days without premium pay, misclassifying employees as contractors to avoid holiday obligations, and failing to document consent and compensation when staff agree to work on holidays. Keeping clear written policies, accurate timesheets, and signed employment agreements in both Georgian and a language your HQ understands will help you demonstrate compliance if audited.

How Do Holidays Affect Overtime Thresholds?

In Georgia, public holidays interact with general working time and overtime rules rather than creating a separate overtime system. Standard weekly working time is capped by law, and hours worked beyond those limits or beyond the employee’s contractual schedule are treated as overtime, which must be compensated at a higher rate or with additional rest time, as agreed in the contract or collective agreement and consistent with the Labour Code.

When an employee works on a public holiday, those hours are typically both holiday work and, if they exceed normal daily or weekly limits, overtime. In practice, employers often apply a combined approach: a premium rate for work on the public holiday plus any overtime premium triggered by excess hours. Because the Labour Code leaves room for contractual arrangements, you should clearly define in your Georgian employment contracts how holiday work and overtime are calculated and paid, and ensure that your payroll system can track holiday hours separately from regular hours.

To minimise risk, many international employers in Georgia adopt a conservative standard, such as paying at least double the regular hourly rate for work on a public holiday and monitoring weekly totals to ensure that any additional overtime premium is also applied where required.

Stay 100% Compliant with Leave Regulations Using Playroll

Managing Georgian public holidays from another country can be tricky, especially when you are juggling multiple jurisdictions and fast-changing labour rules. Playroll helps you stay compliant by acting as your local employment and payroll engine in Georgia.

When you hire through Playroll’s employer of record structure, we build locally compliant Georgian employment contracts that reflect statutory public holidays, working time limits, and holiday pay rules. Our in-country experts track legal updates, so if the government adds or amends a public holiday, your team’s contracts, payslips, and leave balances stay aligned automatically.

Playroll’s platform also makes it easy to see the real cost of your Georgian hires, including public holiday pay and overtime premiums. You can model scenarios like:

Software engineer – Tbilisi
Customer support specialist – remote in Georgia
Finance manager – Tbilisi
Sales representative – regional role based in Georgia
People & culture partner – Georgia hub

For each role, Playroll calculates gross-to-net pay, employer social contributions, and the impact of public holidays on your budget, so there are no surprises at month end. Timesheets and leave requests flow directly into payroll, ensuring that holiday work is correctly flagged and compensated.

If you already have a Georgian entity, you can still use Playroll to run fully compliant local payroll while keeping your own employment contracts. We will align your internal policies with Georgian law, highlight any gaps around public holidays and overtime, and help you update documentation without disrupting your team.

With Playroll, you can focus on building your Georgian team while we handle the complexity of public holidays, leave, and payroll compliance in the background.