Mar 4, 2026

How to Add Holidays to Google Calendar

Google Calendar can automatically display holidays for nearly any country, but many users never realize the feature exists — or that you can layer holidays from multiple countries at once. Whether you celebrate holidays in one country or several, here’s how to set it all up.

1. Enable Built-In Holiday Calendars on Desktop

Google Calendar includes pre-built holiday calendars for most countries. To turn one on:

Go to calendar.google.com and sign in.
In the bottom-left corner, click the ”+” next to Other calendars.
Select Browse calendars of interest.
Scroll down to the Regional holidays section.
Check the box next to the country whose holidays you want to display (e.g., “Holidays in United States”).
Close the settings page. Holiday events will now appear on your calendar.

These holidays show up as all-day events and are color-coded based on the calendar they belong to. You can change the color by right-clicking the calendar name in the left sidebar and selecting a new one.

2. Add Holidays From Multiple Countries

If you work across borders, have family abroad, or just want to stay aware of international holidays, you can enable more than one holiday calendar at the same time.

Follow the same steps as above: click ”+” → Browse calendars of interest → Regional holidays.
Check additional countries (e.g., “Holidays in United Kingdom,” “Holidays in India,” “Holidays in Japan”).
Each country’s holidays will appear as a separate calendar in your left sidebar under Other calendars.

To keep things readable, assign a distinct color to each country’s holiday calendar so you can quickly tell them apart. This is especially helpful if you manage calendars across multiple time zones or coordinate with international clients. Tools like Carly AI can help you manage visibility across several calendars at once, so overlapping holidays from different countries don’t clutter your daily view.

3. Add Holidays on Mobile (Android and iOS)

Android

Open the Google Calendar app.
Tap the hamburger menu (☰) in the top-left corner.
Scroll down and tap Settings.
Tap Holidays under your account.
Toggle on the countries whose holidays you want to see.

iPhone or iPad

The Google Calendar iOS app does not have a built-in way to browse and add holiday calendars. Instead:

Open calendar.google.com in Safari or Chrome.
Switch to Desktop Mode (tap the “Aa” or share icon and select “Request Desktop Site”).
Follow the desktop steps: click ”+” → Browse calendars of interest → check the countries you want.
The holidays will sync to your Google Calendar app on iOS automatically.

4. Remove or Hide Holiday Calendars

You don’t need to permanently delete a holiday calendar to get it out of the way. You have two options:

Hide temporarily:

On desktop, uncheck the calendar in the left sidebar under Other calendars. The events disappear from view but the calendar stays available.
On mobile, tap the hamburger menu (☰) and uncheck the holiday calendar.

Remove permanently:

On desktop, hover over the holiday calendar name in the left sidebar.
Click the three vertical dots (⋮) → Hide from list or go to Settings.
Scroll to the bottom and click Unsubscribe.

This is useful when you only need a country’s holidays during certain seasons — for example, subscribing to a country’s calendar ahead of a business trip and removing it after.

5. Add Custom Holidays or Observances Manually

Google’s built-in holiday calendars cover major national holidays, but they may not include every observance you care about — cultural celebrations, religious holidays, company-specific days off, or school breaks.

To add these manually:

Click on the date of the holiday in your calendar.
Enter the event name (e.g., “Lunar New Year” or “Company Shutdown Day”).
Set it as an All day event.
Optionally, choose a specific calendar to put it on (e.g., a “Custom Holidays” calendar you’ve created).
To make it recurring, click More options → Does not repeat → choose Annually on [date].
Click Save.

Tip: Create a dedicated calendar called “Custom Holidays” or “Observances” so you can toggle these on and off without affecting your main calendar.

Some holidays and observances are available as ICS calendar feeds from third-party sources. These are useful for niche calendars that Google doesn’t offer by default — like interfaith holiday calendars, sports schedules, or academic calendars.

To subscribe:

Find the ICS URL for the calendar you want. It will look something like https://example.com/holidays.ics.
In Google Calendar on desktop, click the ”+” next to Other calendars.
Select From URL.
Paste the ICS link and click Add calendar.

The calendar will appear under Other calendars and will update automatically as the publisher makes changes.

Keep in mind: ICS subscriptions are read-only in Google Calendar. You cannot edit individual events from a subscribed feed. If you need to modify a specific holiday, create it manually on a separate calendar instead.

7. Troubleshooting Common Issues

Issue	Cause	Fix
Holidays not appearing after enabling	Browser cache or sync delay	Refresh the page or wait a few minutes for mobile to sync
Wrong holidays showing (different country)	Incorrect calendar enabled	Check Other calendars in the sidebar and verify the country name
Duplicate holiday events	Multiple calendars with overlapping holidays	Hide or unsubscribe from the redundant calendar
ICS calendar not updating	Feed URL changed or host is down	Re-add the calendar with the current URL
Holidays missing on mobile	Calendar not checked in the app sidebar	Open the hamburger menu and check the holiday calendar
Custom recurring holiday on wrong date	”Annually” repeat set incorrectly	Edit the event, verify the recurrence rule matches the correct date

8. Best Practices for Holiday Calendar Management

Color-code by country or type. Use distinct colors for each holiday calendar so you can scan your week at a glance.
Create a separate calendar for custom holidays. This keeps manually-added observances isolated and easy to toggle.
Review subscriptions annually. Remove holiday calendars you no longer need and check that ICS feeds are still active.
Use hide instead of delete. If you only need holidays seasonally, uncheck the calendar rather than unsubscribing — it’s faster to re-enable later.
Coordinate across calendars with Carly AI. When you’re juggling work, personal, and multiple holiday calendars, Carly can unify your view and help you spot conflicts before they happen.
Don’t forget time zones. Some holiday calendars display events in the publisher’s time zone. Verify that all-day events appear on the correct date in your local time zone.

Conclusion

Adding holidays to Google Calendar takes under a minute for any single country, and layering multiple countries or custom observances is just as straightforward. The key is keeping your calendars organized — color-coded, clearly named, and trimmed to only what you actually need. Once your holidays are in place, you’ll never be caught off guard by an unexpected day off or an international client’s unavailability again.

Ready to automate your busywork?

Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.

Get Carly Today →

Or try our Free Group Scheduling Tool