There are 254 working days in Australia in 2026, counting Monday to Friday and excluding 7 public holidays that fall on a weekday. That is from 365 calendar days, with 104 weekend days removed.
Working days
254
Mon–Fri, holidays removed
Weekend days
104
Saturdays + Sundays
Weekday holidays
7
3 more fall on weekends
Avg / month
21.2
working days per month
| Month | Days | Weekends | Holidays | Working days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 31 | 9 | 2 | 20 |
| February | 28 | 8 | 0 | 20 |
| March | 31 | 9 | 0 | 22 |
| April | 30 | 8 | 3 | 19 |
| May | 31 | 10 | 0 | 21 |
| June | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 |
| July | 31 | 8 | 0 | 23 |
| August | 31 | 10 | 0 | 21 |
| September | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 |
| October | 31 | 9 | 0 | 22 |
| November | 30 | 9 | 0 | 21 |
| December | 31 | 8 | 2 | 21 |
| Total | 365 | 104 | 7 | 254 |
These are the 7 public holidays in Australia that land on a weekday in 2026 and therefore remove a working day. Holidays that fall on a weekend are not listed here because they do not change the working-day total.
The 254 working days shown above are the 365 calendar days of 2026, minus the 104 Saturdays and Sundays, minus the 7 public holidays that land on a weekday. Holidays that fall on a Saturday or Sunday are not subtracted, because they do not remove a day anyone would have worked; in 2026 that applies to 3 of Australia's public holidays. At a standard eight-hour day, 254 working days works out to roughly 2,032 working hours across the year, before any annual leave is taken.
The Fair Work Act 2009 sets a 38-hour standard week as the maximum without overtime, with the working week defined by the relevant modern award or enterprise agreement. The standard private-sector business week is Monday to Friday with banks operating Monday to Friday. Court procedural rules in each state roll filing deadlines from a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday to the next business day. Settlement of Australian dollar transactions runs on the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS), which observes a nationally agreed banking calendar narrower than any single state's holiday list because banks operate across state lines.
Australia has no national public holiday statute; each state and territory legislates its own list under its own Holidays Act or equivalent. The result is eight overlapping but distinct calendars, with about seven days common across all jurisdictions including New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Beyond that, things diverge sharply. Victoria observes the Melbourne Cup public holiday on the first Tuesday in November, the Northern Territory observes Picnic Day, Western Australia observes Foundation Day in early June, and South Australia observes Proclamation Day on 26 December. Queen's Birthday is observed on different dates in different states.
This matters because the working-day total is not spread evenly. Some months in Australia carry several public holidays while others have none, so the month-by-month table above is the figure to use for payroll runs, billing cycles, SLA windows, and project plans rather than a flat assumption of about 21.2 working days per month. A month with two weekday holidays can have several fewer working days than a clear one, which changes capacity planning and the realistic delivery date for anything scheduled in business days.
To see the individual dates, the day of the week each holiday lands on, and the full official list, open the Australia holiday calendar for 2026. You can subscribe to those dates as an .ics feed so they appear in your own calendar, or use the working-days-between-two-dates calculator to count business days for a specific date range rather than the whole year.
Working-day figures are computed from the public holiday list for Australia (source: Nager.Date and the national references above) combined with a Monday-to-Friday business week. Regional holidays and substitute-day rules vary; confirm against the official calendar for legal or payroll use.