The next public holiday in Colombia is Independence of Cartagena

When the next public holiday in Colombia falls

Colombia has eighteen public holidays under Law 51 of 1983 (Ley Emiliani), the highest count in Latin America. The list combines Catholic dates (Epiphany, Saint Joseph's Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart, Saints Peter and Paul, Assumption, All Saints', Immaculate Conception, Christmas Day) with civic dates (New Year's Day, Labour Day, Independence Day on 20 July, Battle of Boyacá on 7 August commemorating the 1819 decisive battle, Independence of Cartagena on 11 November, Day of the Races on 12 October). The Ley Emiliani specifically moved twelve of these to the following Monday to create three-day weekends, the most systematic Monday-isation regime in the Spanish-speaking world.

Knowing the exact date of the next holiday in Colombia matters for more than time off. It tells payroll teams when a pay run shifts, tells anyone with a filing or payment deadline whether a due date rolls forward, and tells cross-border teams which day a counterpart will be unreachable. The countdown above is calculated from the nationally recognised public holiday list and updates live in your own time zone, so a date that is "tomorrow" for someone in Colombia reads correctly for you wherever you are.

Working days and the holiday calendar in Colombia

The Código Sustantivo del Trabajo article 161 sets the standard working week at 47 hours since 2023, reducing to 42 hours by 2026 under Law 2101 of 2021. The standard private-sector office and banking week is Monday to Friday at 8 to 9 hours, with retail and informal sectors operating Monday to Saturday. Sunday is the statutory weekly rest day under article 172. The Código General del Proceso article 118 rolls procedural deadlines falling on a non-working day to the next día hábil. Settlement of Colombian peso transactions runs on the Banco de la República's CUD RTGS system, which observes the eighteen national holidays.

Right now there are about 5 full working days between today and Independence of Cartagena, counting Monday to Friday and skipping any other public holidays in between. If you are scheduling a deliverable, a delivery, or a meeting that depends on people being at their desks in Colombia, that is the realistic window you have before the next closure.

For cross-border planning, overlay the Colombia calendar with the calendars of the other countries your team works with. A week that looks completely open from your side can be a national holiday on theirs, and the clash only shows up when you compare the two side by side. The full holiday page links into a country-by-country comparison so you can spot the weeks where almost nobody is at their desk before you commit to a date.

Holiday dates are compiled from Nager.Date and the national sources listed above. Regional and substitute-day rules vary; for legal deadlines, confirm the observed date with the relevant official calendar for Colombia.