What Are The Public Holidays in Guinea Bissau in 2026?

List of Public Holidays in Guinea Bissau (2026)

Guinea Bissau’s public holidays combine national, religious, and historical observances. The table below lists the main public holidays expected to be observed in 2026 so you can plan staffing, leave, and payroll for your team in the country.

Do Employers Have to Provide Paid Leave on Public Holidays?

Yes, in Guinea Bissau employees are generally entitled to a paid day off on official public holidays when these fall on a normal working day, unless their role requires them to work on those days. In practice, public holidays are treated as rest days with normal pay for full-time employees, and this approach is often mirrored for part-time staff on days they would ordinarily work.

Where an employee must work on a public holiday, local practice and many employment contracts provide for either premium pay for the hours worked or compensatory time off. The exact entitlement is usually set out in the employment contract, internal regulations, or any applicable collective agreement, so you should review these documents carefully.

If a public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, there is not always a statutory requirement to move the holiday to the next weekday. Some employers voluntarily grant an additional day off or treat the nearest weekday as an observed day, but this is typically a matter of company policy or collective bargaining rather than a clear legal mandate. Because practice can vary, especially for religious holidays tied to the lunar calendar, you should confirm observance rules locally each year.

For part-time and shift workers, entitlement is usually pro-rated and linked to whether the holiday falls on a scheduled working day. If the holiday falls on a non-working day for that employee, there may be no additional paid time off unless your internal policy or a collective agreement provides otherwise.

Legal Penalties for Not Providing Paid Holiday Leave

Guinea Bissau’s labour authorities can impose administrative fines and other corrective measures on employers that fail to respect public holiday and paid leave rules. While the exact penalty levels and procedures can change, non-compliance can lead to financial sanctions, orders to rectify underpayments, and, in more serious or repeated cases, increased inspection and enforcement activity.

Labour inspections are typically handled by the competent labour inspectorate, which can review payroll records, work schedules, and employment contracts to check whether public holidays have been correctly treated and paid. If inspectors find that employees were required to work on public holidays without appropriate compensation, or that holidays were ignored entirely, they may require back pay and can apply fines under the labour code.

Common employer mistakes include treating all holidays as unpaid, failing to adjust schedules for shift workers, not recording hours worked on holidays, or assuming that weekend holidays never require any form of observance. To reduce risk, your company should maintain clear written policies, keep accurate time and pay records, and obtain local legal advice when setting or changing holiday practices.

How Do Holidays Affect Overtime Thresholds?

Public holidays in Guinea Bissau generally count as rest days, and hours worked on these days are often treated as exceptional work that attracts premium pay. While specific overtime thresholds and rates can depend on the labour code provisions, collective agreements, and contractual terms, the common approach is that work on a public holiday is either paid at a higher rate than normal hours or compensated with additional time off.

In many cases, hours worked on a public holiday are counted separately from ordinary weekly working time when calculating overtime, with premium multipliers applied to those hours. If an employee exceeds the standard weekly working time because they worked on a holiday, those extra hours may also qualify as overtime, leading to a combined effect of holiday premium plus overtime premium, depending on the applicable rules.

Because the exact percentages and thresholds can vary and may be updated, you should not rely on a generic rate. Instead, check the current labour legislation, any sectoral or company-level collective agreements, and the employee’s contract. For cross-border teams, it is safest to adopt a conservative approach that treats public holiday work as premium work and documents the agreed rate in writing.

Stay 100% Compliant with Leave Regulations Using Playroll

Managing public holidays in Guinea Bissau can be tricky, especially when you are coordinating teams across multiple countries, tracking lunar-based religious holidays, and aligning local practice with your global policies. Playroll helps you stay compliant by combining local expertise with streamlined payroll and HR operations.

When you hire in Guinea Bissau through Playroll, you get locally compliant employment contracts that clearly set out public holiday, leave, and overtime rules, so there is no guesswork about who is entitled to what. Our in-country specialists monitor changes in labour law and local practice, including shifting dates for Eid and other observances, and update your documentation and payroll settings accordingly.

Playroll’s platform automatically applies the correct public holiday calendar for Guinea Bissau, flags upcoming holidays for workforce planning, and calculates pay for employees who work on those days in line with agreed premiums or time-off-in-lieu arrangements. That means fewer manual adjustments, fewer errors, and a much lower risk of underpayment or non-compliance during inspections.

If you are scaling a distributed team, Playroll lets you compare holiday and leave rules across countries in one place, so you can design fair, transparent global policies while still respecting local law. You stay in control of your headcount and costs, while we handle the complexity of contracts, payroll, and statutory benefits on the ground in Guinea Bissau.

With Playroll, your company can focus on building a great team, confident that public holidays, paid leave, and overtime in Guinea Bissau are being handled correctly and consistently every month.