All of these dates have been confirmed with the New Zealand government. If you like, you can find more information about each holiday here. Or — keep scrolling to learn more about the top ones.
Feel free to use any of the above tools to print, save or export holiday dates to use as you see fit. We recommend that you export the dates in PDF or Excel format, that way you can preview what you’ll get before you print it if you do.
Another note – all of these holidays apply to the four major banks as you can see above (ANZ, BNZ, Westpac, and ASB if you can’t see the picture). It will also apply to the majority of other banks currently operating in New Zealand.
Speaking of, we have a neat little section on the site where you can check out all the banks in New Zealand and general information about them. Some of this information includes contact details, branches, ATM locations, where they are headquartered, and their SWIFT codes (if they have any).
If you’re after specific SWIFT codes, we’ll save you some time and point you straight to the ANZ or ASB codes – two of the most popular codes in New Zealand.
Holiday Info
As you may or may not know, New Zealand was actually made up of multiple provinces until the abolition of the provincial government in 1876. From that day on, every province joined together to form modern New Zealand.
In memory of each province, the current New Zealand government still holds a public and banking holiday on each province’s founding day.
Taranaki Anniversary
Originally known as the New Plymouth Province, it was renamed to the Taranaki Province 6 years after its formation in 1859.
The province had four superintendents over the course of its lifetime:
- Charles Brown
- George Cutfield
- Henry Robert Richmond, and
- Frederic Carrington
Southland Anniversary
Southland County first met in 1861, after it had separated from Otago County. They didn’t like being on their own, although they quickly joined Otago in 1970. As you know by now, they only had 6 short years together before the current government was formed.
April 1, 1861, is the official anniversary and public holiday date, but because this is sometimes around Easter, the Southland Anniversary is sometimes pushed back until April 3 (which is exactly the case for 2018).
Southland had three superintendents over its 15-year life:
- James Alexander Robertson Menzies
- John Parkin Taylor
- William Wood
Westland Anniversary
Founded on December 1, 1973, Westland County has had the shortest lifespan of them all. It was only three years before New Zealand combined all its provinces into one group.
In 2018, as December 1st is a Saturday, the public holiday will be pushed back to December 3rd (Monday).
Only a single man held the superintendent title during its lifetime:
- James Bonar
Conclusion
If you’re curious, you’re more than welcome to compare these dates to those of 2017’s public holidays. It can be quite interesting to see just how dramatic the changes can be from one year to the next (in terms of the days the holidays land on).
As well, if you believe there’s been an error with any of the dates listed above, or one of the holidays is listed incorrectly, please contact us! We aim to keep the site as accurate as possible and all the information we receive from our readers helps greatly.