Public Holiday Closures and Document Processing

A public holiday does not delay your document as a whole. It closes whichever office the document is sitting in that day. An overseas document chain passes through several offices, in more than one city and often more than one country, and each keeps its own calendar. Plan by listing every step's location and checking that place's holidays.

Key takeaways

• Each step follows the calendar of the place where it happens: the issuing registry's state, your notary's area, the DFAT office that processes the document, the embassy's city and country, and the destination.
• Published timeframes are usually in business days. Count them forward on the calendar of the office concerned, not your own city.
• The late-December to mid-January period, state-specific long weekends and foreign religious festivals are the periods that most often catch people.
• A receiving authority's recency window does not pause for holidays. Obtain short-life documents last.
• Do not dispatch originals just before a long closure; a package that reaches a closed office waits in a depot or a mailroom.

Why this page lists no dates

This page does not list holiday dates, and that is deliberate. They differ by state and territory, some are local to particular regions, substitute days apply when a holiday falls on a weekend, and several foreign holidays move every year. Any list here would be out of date for someone. What follows is how to work out which calendars apply to your document and what to do about them. For Australian dates, the Australian Government's public holidays page links to each state and territory's official list.

Each step has its own calendar

Work through the chain and note where each step physically happens. A typical chain for a document going overseas runs from the issuing body, through a notary and sometimes a translator, to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), then, for some countries, an embassy or consulate, and finally the receiving authority abroad.

The issuing body. A registry, court, university or agency works to the calendar of the state or territory where it sits. A certificate from an interstate registry follows that state's holidays, not yours. If you are ordering a new birth certificate from the state where you were born, that state's long weekends matter even though you live elsewhere.

The notary. Your local calendar, including any regional holiday in your area. Notaries are usually solicitors in practice, so many also close with their firm over the new year.

The translator. Wherever they work, which may be another state or another country. A NAATI-certified translator can work anywhere in Australia, so ask where yours is based.

DFAT. Its offices observe the public holidays of the place where they are located. If you post documents to DFAT, the relevant calendar is the one where they are processed, not where you live. Check the current lodgement options on Smartraveller before choosing between post and an in-person appointment.

The embassy or consulate. Usually closed on the public holidays of the Australian city it is in and on its own country's national holidays. Some missions also close for religious observances whose dates follow a lunar calendar and are confirmed only shortly beforehand.

Post and couriers. Neither usually delivers on public holidays, and delivery estimates are typically in business days. A courier arriving at a closed office may take the package back to the depot and try again later.

The receiving authority overseas. Its own national calendar. Some countries have extended closures around the new year, national days or a summer period, during which government offices do little or no processing.

Step	Whose holidays apply	Where to check
Issuing registry, court or university	The state or territory where it sits	That state's official public holiday list and the issuer's website
Notary	Your local area, including regional days	Ask the notary about their own closures
Translator	Wherever the translator works	Ask the translator
DFAT	The office that processes the document	DFAT's current information on Smartraveller
Embassy or consulate	Its Australian city and its own country	The mission's published closure days
Receiving authority	The destination country	The authority itself, or whoever asked for the document

Business days, not calendar days

Published processing times are usually stated in business or working days. A timeframe that spans a public holiday, or the late-December to early-January period, takes noticeably longer in calendar terms. When you check a published timeframe, count it forward on a calendar for the office concerned, not for your own city. We do not quote DFAT or embassy timeframes here, because they change; check the current figure with the office itself.

Queues also build around holiday periods. Offices often work through a backlog after reopening, so the days immediately after a closure can be slower than usual even though the office is open. The quiet day before a long weekend is not necessarily a quiet day in the processing queue.

The periods that catch people

The end of the year. In Australia, the Christmas and new year public holidays combine with widespread business closures and reduced services. Many notaries, translators and agents also close for a period. Documents lodged just before this period can sit until well into January, and overseas offices may have their own closure on top.

Long weekends that differ by state. Several holidays fall on different dates, or not at all, in different states and territories. Labour Day, for example, falls in different months in different states, the King's Birthday is not observed on the same day everywhere, and some holidays, such as a city's show day or race day, apply only in part of a state. If your documents cross state lines, such as an interstate registry or a DFAT office in another city, check both calendars.

Foreign holidays in the destination. Major festivals and national holidays abroad can close both the embassy here and the receiving authority there. Lunar New Year, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, Diwali, and Dashain and Tihar are examples whose dates move each year, and some are confirmed only shortly before they begin. Several countries also have a national holiday week or a summer period when government offices slow down.

Your recency window. If a receiving authority requires a document to be issued within a set period, that clock does not pause for holidays. A police check or a bank letter obtained just before a long closure can lose much of its usable life before anyone processes it. See our article on documents that are too old for overseas use.

How to plan around closures

1. List every step with its location, city and country, before you start.
2. Check the public holiday calendar for each location for the weeks the step will happen, including local and regional holidays and substitute days.
3. Check the embassy's own closure days on its official website. Missions usually publish them, often for the whole year.
4. Avoid dispatching original documents just before a long closure. A package that arrives at a closed office sits in a depot or a mailroom, which is neither fast nor secure. Our article on post or courier for legal documents covers tracking and return envelopes.
5. Obtain short-life documents last, after you have checked that no closure falls between issue and submission.
6. Ask the receiving authority whether it will accept a scanned copy as an interim if a closure makes the deadline impossible. Ask before the deadline, not after, and get the answer in writing.

Where a notary fits in the plan

The notary is usually the easiest step to schedule, because it is local and you choose the time. It is also the step where planning pays off most, because the notary can check the whole chain before you begin. Send the notary the receiving authority's instructions ahead of the appointment and ask whether any part of the chain, such as a university verification or an embassy step, needs to be arranged in advance. See what a notary public does for the notarial step itself.

Some notaries offer appointments outside ordinary hours; many do not, and public holidays are no different. Ask the notary directly rather than assuming. If the real deadline sits after the notary, for example at an embassy that is about to close for a festival, a faster notary appointment will not help. Our apostille and authentication page explains the DFAT step that follows, and our document translation page covers the translator's part.

Here is an illustration, not a real case

A nurse in Perth needs a Queensland birth certificate and a national police check apostilled and legalised for a job in a country outside the Hague Convention. She orders the certificate from Queensland in November and checks the Queensland calendar. She sees the embassy's website lists a week-long closure for a national festival in late January. She lodges both documents with DFAT in early December, leaves the police check until the certificate has arrived, and books the embassy step for February rather than squeezing it in before Christmas. Nothing is faster, but nothing sits in a closed office.

In short

Holidays close offices, not documents. List each step and its location, check each location's calendar, count business days on the right calendar, keep short-life documents until last, and never post originals into a long closure. When a closure makes a deadline impossible, ask the receiving authority for an interim arrangement before the deadline passes.

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