Holiday ICS Generator

The holiday ICS generator downloads a .ics file with one all-day VEVENT per US federal observed holiday in the year you pick. Observed dates follow Saturday→Friday and Sunday→Monday. The file is for import into a personal or team calendar. It is not the visual holiday year grid, not a custom ICS builder for arbitrary titles, and not a live subscription feed.

Observed dates as events

Each VEVENT uses the observed date, because that is the day most federal weekday schedules are closed. When legal and observed coincide, you get that weekday. When Christmas is Saturday, the event is typically the Friday observe, not the Saturday legal date. If you need both dates visible, mark them on holiday calendar generator instead of expecting two events per holiday in this file.

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday; there is no federal Friday event. Importing this file will not block the Friday after Thanksgiving unless you add a company event yourself with the generic ICS generator.

How to download

Enter a year, calculate, then download. Import into Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook. Place events on a dedicated “US federal observed” calendar so you can hide them without deleting personal events. Repeat for 2026 when that year begins; last year’s file does not auto-update.

The generic ICS generator is for titles and recurrences you type. This page’s titles are holiday names. Do not use the generic builder to recreate the federal pack by hand; you would miss observe rules.

Year boundaries

If January 1 is a Saturday, the observed New Year’s Day may be the Friday in December of the previous civil year. That Friday event belongs with the year of the observed date. Read the file’s dates before filing a complaint that January looks empty. Conversely, a Sunday January 1 observes Monday January 2.

Leap years do not add a federal holiday. They only change weekdays, which can change which holidays observe onto Friday or Monday. Always generate the actual year.

Worked examples

A remote team in 2026 imports the observed-holiday ICS onto a shared calendar named Federal Observed so standups skip those dates. They still hold standups on company-only closures that are not in the file.

A teacher imports the file, then deletes Columbus Day if the district stays open that Monday. The download is a starting set, not a district calendar.

What the file does not include

No state holidays, no religious calendars, no school breaks, no early bank closes. No VALARM reminders unless the form adds a simple all-day display. No RRULE: each holiday is a single dated VEVENT so importers do not expand a rule incorrectly across years.

Long-weekend interpretation is not encoded as a four-day VEVENT. Each observed date is one all-day event. For a list of Friday–Monday stretches, use long weekends and optionally add PTO as separate events.

Replacing the calendar next year

Delete last year’s federal calendar or last year’s events, then import the new year. Stacking 2026 on top of an old file without deletion duplicates New Year’s Day if names match. Dedicated calendar folders make deletion easy.

Statutory changes (a new federal holiday) require a new download after this site’s holiday table is updated. An old .ics will not grow new events.

Privacy and distribution

The file contains public holiday names, not personal data. You can share it inside an org. It is still a snapshot, not a server feed. If legal needs an official list, use OPM or statute, not this convenience import.

Visual year context without import lives on 2026 holidays. Use both: read, then import.

Dedicated calendar folders

Name the imported calendar with the year and federal-observed so next January you can delete that folder and import the new year. People who import into a mixed personal calendar every year accumulate duplicate Christmas events. The file does not include a reset instruction inside the ICS; the folder name is your process.

Mobile importers sometimes flatten all-day events into the previous evening in another zone. If Christmas appears on the 24th evening, check the client’s all-day time-zone setting. DATE-only events should be all-day; still verify the first holiday after import.

Company overlays

After import, add company floating holidays as separate events, not by editing the federal events. Editing the federal file in place makes next year’s replace harder. Keep federal and company on two calendars with two colors.

Thanksgiving week in the file

The file contains Thursday Thanksgiving and does not contain Friday. Teams that want both days off should add Friday with the generic ICS generator as a once all-day event titled company closure, not by duplicating Thanksgiving. Mixing those titles in one VEVENT confuses next year’s replace.

Veterans Day observed on Friday or Monday will appear as that weekday. A Wednesday Veterans Day appears on Wednesday. Filter the imported calendar if a warehouse only cares about Friday–Monday stretches; or use the long-weekend finder for that filter and keep this ICS complete.