Holiday API Comparison 2026: 5 Best Public Holiday APIs for Developers

Choosing a holiday API sounds simple until you need accurate public holiday data across countries, subdivision support, business-day math, and a free tier for MVPs, staging, and early integrations.

This guide compares five popular public holiday APIs developers use in 2026: HolidayDB, Calendarific, Abstract API, Nager.Date, and HolidayAPI.com. We cover pricing, coverage, business days, and when each option fits best.

Short answer: If you need a free holiday API with business days and a clear upgrade path, HolidayDB's free plan is a strong starting point and one of the few free tiers with a built-in business-days API. If you only need national holidays in a few countries with no business-day logic, Nager.Date is hard to beat on simplicity.

Quick comparison

*Abstract free tier: 1,000 requests, non-commercial use only (terms).

†Nager.Date is free and open-source; you self-host or use their public endpoint with fair-use expectations.

Pricing and limits checked against vendor sites in July 2026. Verify before production.

1. HolidayDB

Best for: SaaS products, HR/payroll tools, and apps that need holidays + business days in one API.

HolidayDB combines public holiday data with a business days calculator and matching API endpoints. The free plan includes 1,000 requests per month with no credit card.

Strengths

• Business days and working-day calculations in the same product
• Clear REST docs at /docs
• Free tier suitable for MVPs and staging environments
• Subdivision-level holidays on paid plans

Trade-offs

• Smaller brand recognition than legacy holiday API vendors
• English-only on the free tier

Example: list US holidays in 2026

curl "https://api.holidaydb.com/api/holidays?country=US&from=2026-01-01&to=2026-12-31" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Example: business days between two dates

curl "https://api.holidaydb.com/api/business-days?country=US&from=2026-01-01&to=2026-12-31" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Start free on the HolidayDB API

2. Calendarific

Best for: Teams that need broad country coverage and subdivision holidays without building business-day logic themselves.

Calendarific is a long-running holiday data provider with a large country list and straightforward JSON responses.

Strengths

• Very wide country coverage
• Subdivision support on many regions
• Mature documentation and predictable REST shape

Trade-offs

• No native business-days endpoint. You implement weekend/holiday math yourself.
• Free plan is 500 requests/month with attribution required (Calendarific pricing)
• Pricing scales quickly at higher volumes

Example

curl "https://calendarific.com/api/v2/holidays?api_key=YOUR_KEY&country=US&year=2026"

3. Abstract API: Holidays

Best for: Quick prototypes inside the Abstract API ecosystem (geolocation, company enrichment, etc.).

Abstract bundles a holidays endpoint with their other micro-APIs. Integration is fast if you already use Abstract.

Strengths

• Simple onboarding if you use other Abstract products
• Clean JSON, familiar dashboard

Trade-offs

• 1,000 requests on the free tier, non-commercial use only (Abstract terms)
• Holidays only; no business-day calculations
• Paid tier starts at $99/month; subdivision data on paid plans

Example

curl "https://holidays.abstractapi.com/v1/?api_key=YOUR_KEY&country=US&year=2026"

4. Nager.Date

Best for: Side projects, open-source tools, and backends that only need national public holidays with zero billing setup.

Nager.Date is a well-known open-source holiday API. The public API requires no API key, which makes local development frictionless.

Strengths

• Free public endpoint, no signup required
• Open-source dataset and API (GitHub)
• Fast to test in scripts and CI

Trade-offs

• No official business-days API
• National holidays by country; no subdivision-specific queries
• Fair-use public endpoint. Not ideal as your only production dependency at scale.
• You may need to self-host for SLA guarantees

Example

curl "https://date.nager.at/api/v3/PublicHolidays/2026/US"

5. HolidayAPI.com

Best for: Marketing sites and apps that already standardized on HolidayAPI.com's response format.

HolidayAPI.com (not affiliated with HolidayDB) is another established vendor in this space with a recognizable domain and generous-sounding free tier.

Strengths

• Subdivision support on the States & Provinces plan ($399/year)
• 1,000 free requests per month; paid plans include up to 1M requests/month

Trade-offs

• Holidays only. Business-day math is DIY.
• Free accounts may only persist API data for 24 hours (terms)
• Naming collision with "holiday API" as a category can confuse newcomers
• Feature set overlaps heavily with Calendarific; compare pricing at your target volume

Example

curl "https://holidayapi.com/v1/holidays?key=YOUR_KEY&country=US&year=2026"

How to choose

National holidays and business-day math work on HolidayDB's free plan. US states, Canadian provinces, and other subdivisions need a paid plan.

Checklist before you commit

1. Count your monthly API calls, including retries and multi-tenant apps.
2. List countries and subdivisions you must support in year one.
3. Decide if you need business days. If yes, eliminate holidays-only APIs early.
4. Test edge cases: moving holidays (Easter), regional observances, and partial work weeks.
5. Read the upgrade path. Free tiers differ more than headline numbers suggest.

Why we built HolidayDB

Most holiday APIs stop at "is this date a public holiday?" Real products also ask:

• How many working days between two dates?
• What happens when a holiday falls on a weekend?
• How do we handle country + region rules in payroll?

HolidayDB answers those questions in one place. On the free plan, you get national holidays and country-level business-day math. Subdivision-level holidays (US states, CA provinces, and similar) require a paid plan.

Explore the API documentation, try the business days calculator, or start on the free plan: 1,000 requests per month, no credit card.

Related reading

• HolidayDB Free Plan: Free Holiday and Business Days API
• Business Days Calculator and API
• API documentation