Qatar Long Weekends 2026 and 2027 Travel Plan

It depends entirely on who employs you, and the gap is bigger than most people expect. For ministries, government agencies and public bodies, Amiri Decision No. 57 of 2025 sets the Eid al-Fitr holiday from the 28th day of Ramadan to the end of the 4th day of Shawwal, and Eid al-Adha from the 9th day of Dhu al-Hijjah to the end of the 13th. On the expected 2027 dates that is 9 consecutive days off at Eid al-Fitr and 9 at Eid al-Adha, both for no annual leave at all. For the private sector, Article 78 of Labour Law No. 14 of 2004 grants three working days for each Eid, which works out at 5 days off at Eid al-Fitr and only 3 at Eid al-Adha. Same holiday, same country, same dates. The toggle at the top of the planner switches every figure, date and fare on this page between the two.

Because 18 December 2026 falls on a Friday, which is already a rest day, so on the letter of the rules it adds no days off at all. In practice Qatar has moved it both times it recently landed on a weekend. In 2020, when 18 December was also a Friday, the Amiri Diwan declared Thursday 17 December the official holiday and staff returned on Sunday 20 December. In 2021, when it fell on a Saturday, the Amiri Diwan declared Sunday 19 December instead. Both give a three-day break. Neither is written into the law as an entitlement, and the announcement usually comes only days ahead, so every figure on this page assumes no substitute day. That is why the planner defaults to booking Thursday 17 December off: it buys the three-day break outright, and if the Diwan repeats 2020 you get the leave day back.

No, and Qatar announces later than most of its neighbours: the Amiri Diwan confirms the public sector by decree and the Ministry of Labour issues a separate private-sector circular, usually one or two days before the holiday. The dates on this page are the Wego calendar’s, which puts Eid al-Fitr on Wednesday 10 March 2027 and Eid al-Adha on Monday 17 May 2027. The Umm al-Qura calculation puts both a day earlier. That matters much more for one than the other. Eid al-Fitr is a 9-day government break either way, because the 28th of Ramadan lands on Sunday 7 March under both readings and the run still finishes on a Saturday. Eid al-Adha does not survive it: a day earlier and the government break drops from 9 days to 6, because the run would end on Wednesday 19 May with Thursday 20 back at work. One leave day on that Thursday recovers the full nine either way, which is the safest thing to book if you are buying something non-refundable.

Three working days, which is the detail that decides everything. Article 78 counts working days, so a Friday or Saturday inside the run is still a day off but does not consume one of the three. Where Eid falls in the week therefore sets the length of the break. In 2027 Eid al-Fitr is expected on a Wednesday, so the three working days are Wednesday, Thursday and the Sunday after, and the weekend in between comes free: 5 days off. Eid al-Adha is expected on a Monday, so the three working days are Monday to Wednesday with a working Sunday before and a working Thursday after, and you get 3. Two annual leave days, the Sunday and the Thursday, turn that 3 into nine. One other thing worth knowing: Article 78 also gives you three working days on dates your employer sets, and Article 75 guarantees only one weekly rest day and names Friday, not Friday and Saturday. This page assumes the two-day weekend that most of the private sector actually works.

No. Qatar recognises four official occasions: Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Qatar National Day on 18 December and National Sports Day on the second Tuesday of February. That is the whole list. Calendars and holiday feeds routinely add things that are not Qatari holidays, and two are worth naming because they appear in widely used data. New Year’s Day on 1 January is not an official holiday in Qatar. Neither is anything called a "March bank holiday": the 7 March 2027 date that shows up under that label is the 28th of Ramadan, which is the first day of the government sector’s Eid al-Fitr holiday, mislabelled. On top of the four, private-sector staff get three more working days at dates their employer chooses, and there is no Islamic New Year, Prophet’s Birthday or Isra and Mi’raj holiday in Qatar the way there is in Kuwait.

More than the headlines suggest, but it is worth checking rather than assuming. Hamad International is open and operating normally on the ground, and Qatar Airways has been rebuilding its network in phases since foreign carriers began returning in April 2026. Every Doha flight is still routed through corridors authorised by the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority rather than open airspace, and the European regulator has told operators under its jurisdiction to avoid Gulf airspace until 31 August 2026, which is before every window on this page. To build the planner, 32 candidate destinations were searched on Wego for real dates in March 2027: 31 had a nonstop actually on sale and only Salalah had none. The seventeen on the page are a spread across the four travel-time bands. Schedules in the region still move at short notice, so confirm your specific flight before buying anything non-refundable.

On this sample it is the private sector’s Eid al-Fitr, where Riyadh came out at QAR 737 return per adult nonstop. But the more useful pattern is that the window matters less than how far ahead you book and how long you can stay. The planner prices every destination on all six trip windows, so you can compare them directly instead of taking a single number on trust. Fares move constantly and every row opens a live Wego search rather than promising the price shown.