California court holidays 2027: the full list and the deadlines they move

The Judicial Council has published the 2027 court holiday schedule. Fourteen days are listed. Three of them are Friday or Monday observances of holidays that fall on a weekend, and one of them does not match the date in the Government Code. Each of those details changes a court-day count.

Load the dates into the firm calendar before the first 2027 hearing is set. Then read the notes below on how each entry behaves.

The 2027 schedule

The list is taken from the Judicial Council's court holidays page. The weekday is added for calendaring; the note explains the entries that move.

What makes a day a court holiday

Code of Civil Procedure section 135 defines a judicial holiday as every full day designated a holiday by Government Code section 6700, with a list of exceptions. Lunar New Year, Diwali, Genocide Remembrance Day, Admission Day, and Columbus Day are state holidays that are not judicial holidays. Every Saturday and the day after Thanksgiving are judicial holidays. When a judicial holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, section 135 lets the Judicial Council designate an alternative day, which is why three 2027 entries sit on a Friday or Monday.

For deadline arithmetic, section 12a treats Saturdays and section 135 holidays as holidays. If the last day to act lands on one, the period runs to the next day that is not a holiday. A court-day count skips them altogether.

A full-day closure that a particular court orders on its own authority is a separate check. Section 12b addresses offices closed for the whole of a day. Read the court's notice and treat a half day or a closed department as a reason to ask, not as an automatic extension.

Three entries to check twice

Juneteenth, Independence Day, and Christmas move to a weekday

The courts are closed on the observed Friday or Monday, not on the calendar date. The calendar date still matters for a calendar-day count that ends on it. Suppose a calendar-day period ends Saturday, December 25. That day is a Saturday, Sunday the 26th is a holiday under the Government Code, and Friday the 24th is the observed closure. Under section 12a the act is due Monday, December 27. A court-day count, by contrast, skips December 24, 25, and 26 and never lands on them.

Farmworkers Day: the statute says March 31, the schedule says April 9

Government Code section 6700 names March 31 as Farmworkers Day, formerly Cesar Chavez Day. In 2027 that is a Wednesday. The Judicial Council's published schedule lists Friday, April 9 instead, and the page does not say why. Section 135 allows an alternative day only when the holiday falls on a weekend, so the two sources do not line up.

Until the Council or the Legislature clarifies the date, treat both days with care. Courts will be closed on the published date, so April 9 is not a court day in practice. March 31 is the statutory holiday, which matters for section 12a. The conservative course is to avoid relying on either day as the last day to act and to confirm with the court hearing the matter. Do not copy the 2026 entry forward: in 2026 the courts closed on Tuesday, March 31.

November has two holidays in fifteen days

Veterans Day falls on Thursday, November 11, and Thanksgiving and the day after follow on November 25 and 26. A motion set for Thursday, December 2, 2027 under the ordinary section 1005 schedule shows the effect.

Sixteen court days become twenty-seven calendar days. A team that pencils in “about three weeks” for notice will be late. The service method can add further days to the notice period; that calculation is covered in the section 1005 article.

State and federal calendars differ

Federal courts in California follow the federal holiday schedule. They observe Columbus Day on Monday, October 11, 2027, when the superior courts are open, and the federal list does not include Lincoln's Birthday, Farmworkers Day, Native American Day, or the day after Thanksgiving. Individual district courts sometimes close on additional days by general order. A matter with both a state and a federal component needs both calendars, and a firm holiday calendar built from the federal list will miss four state closures.

Loading the year

• Enter all fourteen 2027 closures as all-day, non-working days in the firm calendar system.
• Mark Juneteenth, Independence Day, and Christmas on the observed date, and note the calendar date separately for calendar-day counts.
• Flag March 31 and April 9 for review until the Farmworkers Day date is settled.
• Keep federal holidays on a separate layer so a court-day count uses the right list.
• Record the source and the date the list was loaded, and check the Judicial Council page again in January.
• Add court-specific closure days from each court's notices as they are published.

AlwaysPresent puts hearings and docket activity on the firm's calendar so the people counting court days are working from the court's actual dates. The planned deadline tools are intended to show the holidays a count skipped alongside the result. Explore AlwaysPresent.

This article provides general information for California civil litigation workflows. It does not determine the deadline in a particular case, and the Judicial Council's published schedule controls over any list reproduced here.

Related articles: How to count court days in California and CCP 1005 motion deadlines.