India Festivals and Celebrations

The short version.

India's festivals are among the strongest reasons to choose one set of dates over another, and this page is going to be unusually careful about them. No source in this cluster research register dates, describes or sources a single Indian festival. So rather than reproduce a list that would look researched and would not be, this page sets out how the calendar behaves, what changes for a traveler when a major festival is on, and where to get the actual dates for the year you are traveling in.

That is a deliberate limit rather than an omission. A festival date published from memory is worse than no date, because a reader books flights against it.

Why the dates move.

The Gregorian calendar is not the only one in use in India, and most major religious observances are fixed against a lunar or a luni-solar reckoning instead. The consequence for a visitor is simple and frequently missed: the same festival falls at a different point in the Gregorian year each year, sometimes by several weeks. A date remembered from a previous trip, or read off a page that did not say which year it meant, is likely to be wrong.

India also observes national holidays fixed to the Gregorian calendar, and individual states have their own public holidays on top of the national ones. A day that is ordinary in one state can be a full holiday in the next, which matters for banks, offices and intercity transport more than it does for sightseeing.

What actually changes for a traveler.

Three things, and all of them are planning inputs rather than warnings.

Transport tightens. Long distance trains and domestic flights fill well ahead around the major festivals and around school holidays, and prices follow. If your dates are near one, book the long legs first and the hotels second.

Alcohol availability changes, and it is already a state by state question in India. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office safety advice records that sales are often banned during major religious festivals, national holidays and elections, on top of the states where alcohol is prohibited altogether. The travel safety guide in this cluster sets out which states those are.

Crowds change in kind, not only in size. Some observances draw numbers that transform a city for a week. That can be the finest thing you will see and it can also mean closed roads, moved security cordons and a different set of rules about where you may walk. Neither is a reason to avoid a festival; both are reasons to have local guidance while you are in one.

Planning toward one rather than around one.

The honest advice is that a festival is worth building a trip around if you can. A great deal of what is most worth seeing in India happens on a handful of days rather than continuously, and arriving a week later means seeing the same buildings without the thing that fills them.

The constraint is that it has to be planned early, because everybody else is doing the same. And it is one of the places where being taken by someone who knows the city pays for itself, because the difference between watching a procession and being somewhere useful to watch it from is entirely local knowledge.

Where to get the dates.

Use the official calendar for the year you are traveling in, and confirm regionally as well as nationally, because a state holiday can matter more to your itinerary than a national one. Then tell us the dates and we will tell you what is on. That is a question we can answer properly for a specific year and a specific route, and it is the reason this page does not try to answer it generically.

How to settle it.

Decide whether the trip is built around a festival or merely passing near one. If it is built around one, fix the dates first and everything else afterward. If it is passing near one, expect full trains and check the alcohol position for the states you will be in. Either way, get the dates from a source that names the year.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: gives the police helpline in India as 100 and the national emergency number as 112, with a women helpline on 1091, records that vapes and related products are banned, that possession of illegal drugs carries a minimum sentence of 6 months for small amounts and that you could be detained for several years while your case is processed, that it is illegal to possess and operate satellite phones and GPS devices in India without a license even if you are only transiting through India, that British women have been victims of sexual assault and that travelers should avoid isolated areas including beaches when alone at any time of day, that alcohol is illegal in Bihar, Gujarat, Mizoram, Nagaland and Lakshadweep with a prison sentence of 5 to 10 years and that some states sell 30-day alcohol permits, that a 1949 version of the international driving permit is needed, and that there are no commercial mountain rescue services operating above 3,000m. Accessed 22 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: states that you must have a visa to visit India unless you are an Overseas Citizen of India cardholder, that a passport must be valid for at least 6 months after the date you arrive and have at least 2 blank pages, that an e-arrival card is completed online up to 72 hours before arrival and is not a visa, that accommodation providers must register foreign guests with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office, that a stay of more than 180 days without an OCI card must be registered within 14 days of arrival, that a special exit permit takes between 5 and 15 working days, that amounts above 5,000 US dollars in notes or 10,000 US dollars in notes and travelers checks combined must be declared, and that permits for restricted areas should be applied for 3 months before arrival. Accessed 22 September 2026.