Bayram dates in Turkey: Kurban and Ramazan Bayramı 2027

In Turkey the feast dates are set by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), which publishes a list of religious days for each year. The Diyanet fixes the start of Hijri months in advance by astronomical calculation, without waiting for a sighting: the crescent must be visible somewhere on Earth, meaning at least 8 degrees from the sun and 5 degrees above the horizon (Diyanet definitions). That is why the 2027 list and the 2028 list are already known.

Some countries wait for the crescent to be seen with the naked eye, so the feast there may start a day earlier or later. The Diyanet's note on Hijri calendar differences explains why. In Turkey the public holiday always follows the Diyanet's date. The Hijri year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year, so both feasts move about eleven days earlier every year; the table on bayram dates 2026–2035 shows the drift.

Law 2429 on national and general holidays defines Ramazan Bayramı as 3.5 days and Kurban Bayramı as 4.5 days, each starting at 1 pm on the eve. 28 October is also a holiday from 1 pm. The eve morning is therefore a normal working day and the afternoon is off. If the eve falls on a weekend, the half day is simply lost.

The law provides no compensation for holidays on weekends. In 2027 Labour and Solidarity Day falls on a Saturday, the eve of Kurban Bayramı on a Saturday and its first day on a Sunday. Of the 14.5 days of holidays in 2027, 12 therefore fall on weekdays. 2028 is worse: only 7 of 15.5 days are weekdays; Ramazan Bayramı runs 26–28 February 2028 and Kurban Bayramı 5–8 May 2028. More on is the eve a half day.

Administrative leave for public employees before or after a feast is not in the law; it is announced each time by a Presidential circular published in the Official Gazette. We checked every issue of the Official Gazette from 1 January 2026 to 27 October 2026, extra issues included: no administrative leave for 2027 has been published. The site therefore shows 2027 administrative leave as “not announced yet”; we do not guess.

Administrative leave does not bind the private sector. An employer may grant the same days as paid leave, but is not required to. A private-sector employee who wants a bridge uses annual leave. The days that give the most time off are calculated on bridge days 2027 and administrative leave 2027.

Ramadan 2027 begins on 8 February 2027; the first tarawih is on the evening before. Laylat al-Qadr is the evening of 5 March 2027. In this late-winter Ramadan, the fast in Istanbul lasts 12 h 1 min on the first day and 13 h 12 min on the last.

The times on the 2027 Ramadan timetable are computed for the 81 provincial centres with the Diyanet's published parameters. We compared the computation with the Diyanet's official calendar over 195,858 prayer times: 9,340.0% of imsak and 9,450.0% of iftar times match to the minute, the rest differ by one minute. For worship, the Diyanet's official times prevail. For daily use there is the iftar countdown.

Under Labour Code 4857, whether work is done on public holidays is set by the collective or individual contract; failing that, the employee must agree. An employee who works on a holiday receives an extra day's pay for it (Art. 47). The daily wage is the monthly wage divided by 30. The calculation is on holiday pay.

Annual leave is 14, 20 or 26 days depending on length of service (Art. 53). Public holidays within a leave period are not counted as leave (Art. 56), so putting leave next to a feast buys a longer break for the same days. For civil servants, Law 657 provides 20 or 30 days.

Every date on the site comes from a calculation engine: feasts and holy nights are read from the Diyanet list, holiday lengths from the law, and each page shows its reading date. Counters run on Turkey time, UTC+3. The province, year or leave days you choose are never sent to a server; the calculation happens in your browser. The site is published by Radif Partners and carries no donation, affiliate or referral links. The full method is on the method page.