Every Australian state and territory gets its own set of natural long weekends — public holidays that fall next to a weekend with zero annual leave required — but no two states get exactly the same ones. Local public holidays like Victoria’s AFL Grand Final Friday, Western Australia Day, or South Australia’s Adelaide Cup Day mean the calendars genuinely differ, not just the dates on shared national holidays.
Here’s every state and territory’s 2026 natural long weekends side by side, verified against each jurisdiction’s official public holiday sources.
| State/territory | Long weekends in 2026 | Longest one |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 6 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| Victoria | 7 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| Queensland | 6 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| Western Australia | 7 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| South Australia | 7 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| Tasmania | 6 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| Australian Capital Territory | 8 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
| Northern Territory | 7 | 3 – 6 April (Easter, 4 days) |
Every state’s Easter block (Friday 3 – Monday 6 April) and Christmas/Boxing Day block (Friday 25 – Monday 28 December) tie for the longest natural long weekend of the year, both running 4 days with no leave required. Where states actually diverge is in the middle of the year:
- The ACT tops the list with 8 — it’s the only jurisdiction with both Canberra Day (March) and Reconciliation Day (early June) on top of every holiday every other state shares.
- Victoria and Western Australia both get 7, driven by state-only holidays — Victoria’s Friday before the AFL Grand Final (25 September), WA’s own Labour Day (early March) and Western Australia Day (1 June).
- Queensland, NSW and Tasmania sit at 6 — still every national holiday, just without an extra state-specific one landing next to a weekend this particular year.
See every date for your state
Each hub below has the full list — exact dates, how many days each break runs, and how much further a day or two of annual leave would extend it:
- New South Wales long weekends, 2026
- Victoria long weekends, 2026
- Queensland long weekends, 2026
- Western Australia long weekends, 2026
- South Australia long weekends, 2026
- Tasmania long weekends, 2026
- ACT long weekends, 2026
- Northern Territory long weekends, 2026
Want to turn one of these into an even longer break? The Annual Leave Optimiser shows exactly how many extra days off you’d get for each day of leave you add, for your specific state. See also our guide to maximising your annual leave in 2026 for the full leave-stacking math behind Easter and Christmas.