Bank & NEPSE Holidays in Nepal (Per BS Year): 2082 Closed Days

Quick rule of thumb for a normal week: if it is a weekend day or a gazetted public holiday, both banks and the Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) are closed; otherwise they are open during their published hours. NEPSE only matches or trades a share on a working day, and settlement (currently a T+2 cycle, meaning trades settle two working days later) also pauses on closed days. So the two questions traders and account-holders search most, 'is NEPSE open today' and 'is the bank open today', usually come down to one check: is today a weekend or a listed holiday?

The weekly rest days changed recently. For decades the government week ran Sunday to Friday with only Saturday off, so NEPSE historically traded Sunday to Thursday and banks stayed open five and a half days with a Friday half-day. In 2025-2026 the Government of Nepal moved public offices, schools, banks and NEPSE toward a Saturday-and-Sunday weekend. NEPSE shifted to a Monday-to-Friday trading week, and Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB, the central bank) directed banks and financial institutions to observe both Saturday and Sunday as holidays with revised office hours. Because this policy has faced resistance from some local governments, the exact weekend can still vary by institution and location, so confirm with your own bank branch.

Beyond the weekend, the reliable answer always comes from the official annual circulars: NRB's bank-holiday list for the running Bikram Sambat (BS) year and NEPSE's own closure notices. When in doubt, check the NEPSE website's holiday listing or your bank's notice board rather than a generic public-holiday calendar, because the finance sector adds days that ordinary offices do not observe.

Nepal has three overlapping holiday calendars, and confusing them is the most common mistake. The first is the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) public-holiday gazette, which sets the general list of national holidays for all offices each BS year (28 gazetted public holidays were declared for 2082 BS, alongside the weekly rest day). The second is Nepal Rastra Bank's annual bank-holiday circular, which starts from the MOHA list but adds extra days that only the banking sector observes. The third is NEPSE's trading calendar, which follows public holidays and weekends but is also shaped by exchange-specific rules and financial-year settlement deadlines.

The clearest example is the festival season. MOHA may gazette a handful of Dashain and Tihar days for general offices, but NRB grants banks a longer, continuous break. For 2082 BS the bank-holiday circular closed banks across the core Dashain span (from Ghatasthapana on Ashoj 6 through Dwadashi around Ashoj 18) and the Tihar span (from around Laxmi Puja on Kartik 3 through Bhai Tika on Kartik 7). Because clearing and cheque-processing pause too, a payment that would normally clear overnight can be delayed several days during these festivals.

NEPSE, by contrast, does not add its own festival days on top of the public list, but it can lose extra trading days for operational and fiscal-year reasons and it does not trade on any day the banking-and-settlement chain is closed. This is why the safest source for 'share market holiday Nepal' questions is NEPSE's own notice rather than the generic gazette: a day can be a bank holiday, a NEPSE holiday, both, or neither.

NEPSE runs an automated, order-driven market and only trades on scheduled working days. Historically it operated Sunday to Thursday from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, closing on Friday for a shortened session or non-trading day and on Saturday for the weekend. Following the government's move to a two-day weekend, NEPSE realigned to a Monday-to-Friday trading week, keeping the regular continuous session broadly in the late-morning-to-mid-afternoon window and closing on Saturday and Sunday. Times zone is Asia/Kathmandu (UTC+05:45).

A normal trading day has more than one phase: a short pre-open session where orders can be entered, amended or cancelled before a single opening price is set, followed by the continuous regular session where buy and sell orders match in real time, and a post-close period during which no new trades execute. On any public holiday that falls on a working day, the whole sequence is cancelled and no price is discovered for that day.

Two calendar features specifically affect traders. First, the T+2 settlement cycle means closed days extend how long money and shares take to settle, so a purchase made just before a long festival break settles later than usual. Second, the fiscal year ends on Ashad 31 (mid-July); year-end processing can influence the final trading days before the books close. For any specific date, always confirm against NEPSE's published holiday listing, because ad-hoc closures (for elections, mourning days or technical reasons) are announced through exchange notices.

Every BS year Nepal Rastra Bank publishes a bank-holiday circular that binds all licensed institutions, Class 'A' commercial banks, Class 'B' development banks, Class 'C' finance companies, Class 'D' microfinance institutions, infrastructure development banks and the Nepal Clearing House. This list, not the general public gazette, governs when your branch and inter-bank clearing are closed. The 2082 BS circular (published in early 2025) set out roughly four dozen closed days across the year, including the extended Dashain and Tihar breaks and gazetted national days such as New Year (Baisakh 1) and International Workers' Day (Baisakh 18).

The traditional bank week was distinctive: every Saturday was a full holiday and every Friday was a half-day, with transaction counters closing earlier than office hours. Summer office hours ran about 10:00 am to 5:00 pm (banking transactions to 4:00 pm) and shorter winter hours applied from roughly Kartik 16 to Magh 15. The Friday half-day, ending banking around 12:30 pm, was a defining feature of Nepali banking for years.

That pattern is changing. Alongside the government's two-day weekend, NRB directed banks to close on both Saturday and Sunday and to operate a standard weekday schedule (broadly 9:00 am to 5:00 pm office hours, with shorter winter hours and earlier transaction cut-offs). Under the new arrangement Friday becomes a full working day rather than a half-day. Because implementation has been uneven and subject to change, the safest approach is to treat the current NRB circular and your bank's own published hours as authoritative for any given date.

The following are the headline closed days that both banks and NEPSE observe in the 2082 BS year (mid-April 2025 to mid-April 2026). Treat the exact per-day list as indicative and confirm against the official NRB circular and NEPSE notices, because some festival dates shift by a day between panchang (almanac) authorities, provincial governments can add up to a few local days, and the weekly rest day itself was in transition during this year.

The single longest closure is Dashain. For 2082 BS the core Dashain break for banks ran from Ghatasthapana (Ashoj 6, around 22 September 2025) through the days around Vijaya Dashami (Ashoj 16, around 2 October 2025) to Dwadashi (about Ashoj 18). Tihar follows a few weeks later, with banks closed across the span from about Laxmi Puja (Kartik 3) to Bhai Tika (Kartik 7, around 23 October 2025). Chhath (about Kartik 10, late October 2025) is also observed, especially in the Tarai.

Other widely observed closed days in 2082 BS include Nepali New Year (Baisakh 1, 14 April 2025), Buddha Jayanti and International Workers' Day around Baisakh (early May 2025), Janai Purnima and Krishna Janmashtami in Shrawan (August 2025), Constitution Day in Ashoj (September 2025), Maghe Sankranti (Magh 1, mid-January 2026), Maha Shivaratri and Holi in Falgun (February-March 2026), plus community and regional holidays such as the various Lhosar celebrations. Weekends are additional to all of these.

For a definitive yes-or-no on any specific day, go straight to the primary sources rather than a general holiday app. NEPSE publishes a holiday listing and issues closure notices on its official website; that is the authority for 'is NEPSE open today' and 'share market holiday Nepal'. For banking, Nepal Rastra Bank's holiday archive carries the annual circular for each BS year (2082 and 2083 lists are published), and every commercial bank republishes its own office and transaction hours.

A few practical tips reduce surprises. Plan cheque deposits and large transfers before long festival breaks, since clearing pauses and a T+2 or slower settlement can push value dates well past the holiday. Remember that ATMs, mobile banking, QR payments and card networks generally keep working even when branches are closed, so digital channels are your fallback on holidays. And note that some provincial or Kathmandu Valley jatra days are local: a day may be a bank holiday in one province and a normal working day in another.

Finally, because the weekly rest day and office hours were mid-transition across 2082 BS, do not assume last year's pattern still holds. If a date matters for a payment deadline, an IPO application, a rights-share window, or a trade settlement, verify against the current NRB circular and NEPSE notice for that exact BS year before you rely on it.