Bolivia Public Holidays in 2026: What Employers Need to Know

Bolivia is not the kind of market where you can treat public holidays as a small calendar detail.

If you employ someone there, holidays affect when your team is available, how payroll should be handled, and whether you need to plan around extra time off. In 2026, that matters even more because Bolivia did not just stick to the standard calendar. The government also moved some holidays and added extra non-working days through Supreme Decree 5521.

That’s the part that can catch you off guard. On paper, a holiday looks simple. In practice, it can change staffing, push deadlines, and create payroll issues if someone works when they were supposed to be off.

This guide gives you the Bolivia public holiday calendar for 2026, explains what happens when an employee works on one of those days, and shows you how to stay organized without turning holiday compliance into a recurring headache.

Bolivia public holidays table

Here’s the national holiday calendar for Bolivia in 2026. The dates below reflect the official decree, including transferred holidays and the additional non-working days added around Corpus Christi and Independence Day.

There are a few details worth calling out.

• The Plurinational State holiday is usually tied to January 22, but in 2026, the non-working day was moved to January 23.
• The Andean Amazonian Chaco New Year was also shifted, with the day off observed on June 22 in 2026.
• Bolivia also added June 5 and August 7 as extra national holidays under the official 2026 holiday decree.
• You should also remember that national holidays are not always the full story. Bolivia has department-level holidays too, so a current Bolivia public holiday calendar is useful when you need to confirm whether a regional holiday applies to your employee’s location.

How holiday pay works in Bolivia

This is where payroll comes into focus.

In Bolivia, public holidays are generally paid non-working days. So if your employee does not work on the holiday, you would usually still treat the day as paid.

If your employee works on a public holiday, the rule changes. Bolivia’s labor framework allows holiday work only in certain situations. When it’s allowed, the employer can generally either give the employee a substitute rest day during the same week or pay a 100% surcharge on top of the normal pay for that day.

You do not want managers improvising here. You want one clear approach that your team understands and that payroll can apply consistently.

Employer public holiday compliance in Bolivia

This is where things get real.

If your employee supports customers, works across time zones, or is part of a team with fixed delivery deadlines, a holiday is not just a day off. It’s a planning issue. You need to know whether the person will be unavailable, whether coverage is needed, and whether payroll needs to account for holiday work.

Most problems here are more messy than they are dramatic. A manager asks someone to work. Nobody records it properly. Payroll treats the day like a normal shift. Then you’re untangling the mistake after the fact.

That’s why it helps to treat the holiday calendar as part of your operating rhythm, not just a note in an HR folder.

A few habits will save you trouble:

• Confirm the employee’s work location. Department holidays can matter just as much as national ones.
• Create one holiday-work rule. Decide when substitute rest applies, when surcharge pay applies, and who approves it.
• Flag holiday work before payroll closes. It’s much easier to get it right before payday than to fix it later.
• Communicate early. Carnival, June holidays, and August holidays can affect handoffs, support coverage, and deadlines.

Tips and resources for successful public holiday compliance

If you want this to run smoothly, the goal is to build a process that your team can follow.

1. Start with the holiday calendar at the beginning of the year.
2. Then check again if a new decree changes the schedule.
3. Make sure your managers know which dates affect the employee, especially if the person works in a department with its own holiday.
4. Before payroll closes, review any time logged on public holidays so you can catch issues while they are still easy to fix.

It also helps to keep a simple reference set in one place:

• The official annual decree. Including the 2026 changes that added June 5 and August 7 as extra national holidays and moved the January and June observances.
• The labor regulations. Including the rule that qualifying holiday work may be handled with a same-week rest day or a 100% surcharge.
• Your internal payroll and time-tracking process. What managers approve matches how the employee is actually paid.

You do not need a massive compliance playbook. You need a clean system that people will actually use.

Support from EOR providers

If you’re hiring internationally, public holidays are only one part of the picture. You’re also dealing with local contracts, payroll, tax withholding, benefits, onboarding, and country-specific labor rules.

That is where an Employer of Record (EOR) can help.

An employer of record is a third party that legally employs your worker on your behalf in the country where they live and work. You still manage the person’s day-to-day responsibilities, goals, and performance. The EOR handles the local employment layer behind the scenes, including compliant contracts, payroll administration, statutory obligations, and the practical details that come with employing someone in-country.

In Bolivia, that can make a real difference. An EOR can help you keep track of holiday calendars, apply the right payroll treatment when someone works on a public holiday, and make sure your local setup is aligned with the employment rules that apply.

How Pebl can help

If you’ve got your eyes set on Bolivia, Pebl’s local employer of record helps you hire in Bolivia while keeping holiday calendars, payroll, and documentation aligned. That means navigating compliance is off your plate, so there are fewer last-minute surprises, fewer manual fixes, and a clearer experience for both your team and your employee.

You stay focused on the work. Pebl helps keep the employment side steady.

From holiday handling to day-to-day employment administration, Pebl gives you the support and local structure to hire with more confidence. If you want to build your team in Bolivia without getting buried in admin, let’s chat about how we can help you do it cleanly from day one.

This information does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal or tax advice and is for general informational purposes only. The intent of this document is solely to provide general and preliminary information for private use. Do not rely on it as an alternative to legal, financial, taxation, or accountancy advice from an appropriately qualified professional. The content in this guide is provided “as is,” and no representations are made that the content is error-free.

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