SBP announces bank holiday on January 1

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has declared 1st January, 2025 as ‘official bank holiday’.

It announced in a notification on Friday that all banks of the country will remain closed for public dealing on Wednesday, January 1, 2025.

Financial institutions observing the bank holiday include all banks, development finance institutions (DFIs), and microfinance banks (MFBs).

The central bank will also observe the bank holiday. However, all employees of the banks, DFIs, and MFBs will attend the office as usual, according to SBP’s notification.

The announcement is part of routine annual procedures as financial institutions prepare for the start of the new calendar year.

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On December 23, the federal government announced scheduled public holidays for the year of 2025 which includes holidays for national, Islamic and minority festivals.

According to a Cabinet Division’s notification, dates highlighting various occasions will be observed throughout the year have been mentioned in the holidays calendar. However for holidays concerning Islamic events, the dates will be subjected to the appearance of the moon and separate notifications would be issued closer to the lunar calendar dates.

For government servants, no optional holiday shall be granted without prior permission of the head of the respective organisation concerned.

The notice also clarified that the optional holidays are denominational and may be allowed at the discretion of the head of the organisation, provided that work did not suffer, and that a government servant should not ordinarily be refused an optional holiday that is of religious significance.

With the public notification released, the citizens have been given a clarity to plan their festivals and offs accordingly.

The detailed holidays have been mentioned below:

• Kashmir Day will be observed on February 5, 2025, while Pakistan Day will be observed on March 23, 2024.
• Eid-ul-Fitr to be celebrated on March 30, 31 and April 1 of 2025
• Labour Day on May 1, while Youm-e-Takbeer will be observed on May 28th of 2025.
• Eid-ul-Azha on June 7, 8 and 9 of 2025
• Ashura will be observed on July 5 and 6 of 2025.
• Independence Day will be celebrated on August 14 of 2025.
• Eid Milad-un-Nabi will be celebrated on September 5 and 6 of 2025.
• Iqbal Day will be observed on November 9