ASU Holiday Calendar 2026-2027: Key Dates & Closures

The ASU Holiday Calendar 2026-2027 spans eleven official closure and break periods between May 2026 and July 2027, drawn from Arizona State University’s University Registrar Services academic calendar and its Business and Finance holiday schedule.

ASU closes the university for eight holiday periods in the 2026-2027 academic year — Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Winter Break, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day — while Fall Break and Spring Break excuse classes without closing campus.

The ASU academic calendar 2026-2027 outlines the dates and deadlines for fall, spring, and summer classes, while a separate holiday schedule governs when employees receive paid time off.

These two calendars overlap on most closures but diverge on two of the most-searched dates of the year — Fall Break and Spring Break — which excuse classes without closing the university or triggering employee holiday pay.

ASU Holiday Calendar 2026-2027 At a Glance

The table below lists every official ASU closure and excused-class period across the 2026-2027 academic year in chronological order, including the bookending summer terms.

ASU’s University Registrar Services labels closures using two distinct designations: “Classes excused/University closed” and “Classes excused/University open.” Only the first designation carries a paid holiday for staff.

Fall Break and Spring Break excuse students from attending class but keep offices, dining, housing, and library services running on a normal or near-normal schedule.

ASU Holiday Calendar Fall 2026

Fall 2026 begins in mid-August and closes with commencement in mid-December, structured around three overlapping session lengths.

Labor Day 2026

Labor Day falls on Monday, September 7, 2026, and the university closes with classes excused. This is the first university-wide closure of the Fall 2026 semester, arriving roughly three weeks after Session A and C classes begin.

ASU Fall Break 2026

Fall Break runs Saturday, October 10, through Tuesday, October 13, 2026 — a period the registrar designates as classes excused with the university remaining open. Because Saturday and Sunday are already non-instructional days, the break’s practical effect is two additional excused weekday instructional days, Monday and Tuesday.

The window also absorbs the federal Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day observance, which falls on Monday, October 12, 2026, without ASU designating it as a separate paid holiday.

Veterans Day 2026

Veterans Day falls on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, with classes excused and the university closed. This closure sits roughly midway through Session B, which began October 14, 2026.

ASU Thanksgiving Break 2026

Thanksgiving Holiday runs Thursday, November 26, through Friday, November 27, 2026, with the university closed both days. Combined with the preceding weekend, this produces a four-day period without class, though only the Thursday and Friday carry a formal closure designation.

ASU Winter Break 2026

ASU Winter Break 2026 is from December 13, 2026, to January 10, 2027. The gap between the end of finals and the start of Spring 2027 Session A classes on January 11, 2027, spans 30 calendar days, even though the university-closed portion of that gap is only two days.

Session C final exams run December 7–12, 2026, followed by Commencement on Monday, December 14, 2026, and Holiday Break — the official term for ASU’s winter closure — on Thursday and Friday, December 24–25, 2026.

ASU Holiday Calendar Spring 2027

Spring 2027 opens with a University-closed holiday within the first full week of classes and closes with commencement in early May.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2027

MLK Day falls on Monday, January 18, 2027, one week into the semester, with classes excused and the university closed.

ASU Spring Break 2027

ASU Spring Break runs Sunday, March 7, through Sunday, March 14, 2027 — an eight-day window the registrar marks as classes excused with the university open.

Unlike Fall Break’s four-day span, Spring Break covers a full instructional week (Monday through Friday, March 8–12, 2027) plus both surrounding weekends.

ASU Holiday Calendar Summer 2027

Summer terms bookend the 2026-2027 academic year, and each carries two university closures.

Summer 2027 Closures

Session A runs Monday, May 17, 2027, through Friday, June 25, 2027; Session B runs Wednesday, June 30, 2027, through Tuesday, August 10, 2027; and Session C runs Monday, May 17, 2027, through Friday, July 9, 2027.

Memorial Day falls on Monday, May 31, 2027, and Independence Day is observed on Monday, July 5, 2027 — a Monday observance because July 4, 2027, falls on a Sunday.

ASU Employee and Staff Holiday Schedule 2026-2027

The student-facing Academic Calendar and the staff-facing Holiday Schedule use identical closure dates, but the Holiday Schedule is the authoritative source for benefits-eligible employees.

ASU’s Business and Finance office publishes this schedule three years at a time and flags that it may differ from the Arizona Board of Regents holiday schedule.

The 2027 Winter Break extends to four days because December 24, 2027, falls on a Friday, pushing the closure through the following Monday; the 2027 schedule also lists Friday, December 31, 2027, as a closure, since it is the observed date for New Year’s Day 2028, which falls on a Saturday.

Student Academic Break vs. Employee Paid Holiday

These two categories are frequently conflated but function differently in practice.

Program-specific policies can narrow this distinction further. ASU’s School of Social Work practicum policy recognizes only the university’s official holiday schedule as approved credit toward internship hours; Fall Break and Spring Break do not count as holidays, and students need Practicum Instructor approval to take that time off and a plan to make up the hours.

Holidays Not on ASU’s Official Schedule

Four widely searched federal or state observances do not appear on either ASU calendar.

• Presidents’ Day — not a university closure; classes and offices operate normally.
• Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples’ Day — not a separate closure, though the date typically falls within ASU’s Fall Break window in both 2026 (Monday, October 12) and 2027 (Monday, October 11).
• Good Friday — not a university closure; Good Friday falls on March 26, 2027, a regular Spring 2027 instructional day.
• Juneteenth — not among the eight holidays listed on ASU’s official Holiday Schedule for 2025, 2026, or 2027.

Academic Calendar vs. Employee Holiday Schedule: Two Separate Systems at ASU

ASU runs two calendars that share most dates but serve different audiences and answer different questions. The Academic Calendar tells students when to attend class; the Holiday Schedule tells employees when they receive paid time off.

Confusing the two is the single largest source of misinformation in ASU holiday searches, because a date can be a “break” on one calendar and absent entirely from the other.

Governing Entities Behind the ASU Holiday Calendar 2026-2027

Three separate offices publish calendar data that feeds into the ASU Holiday Calendar 2026-2027. University Registrar Services maintains the Academic Calendar covering session dates, add/drop deadlines, and final exam schedules.

ASU Business and Finance publishes the official ASU holiday schedule, which the office explicitly notes may differ from the Arizona Board of Regents holiday schedule — meaning ABOR, the governing body over Arizona’s public university system, does not automatically set ASU’s employee closures.

A third office, Educational Outreach and Student Services, maintains a separate calendar of religious holidays and observances through its Council of Religious Advisors.

University Closed vs. Classes Excused — What Each Status Means

“University closed” means offices, most administrative services, and instruction all stop; “classes excused” alone means only instruction stops.

Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Winter Break, MLK Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day all carry the “University closed” designation.

Fall Break and Spring Break carry “classes excused” only — Fall Break 2026 runs October 10–13, 2026, with the university explicitly marked as open, meaning administrative offices, most campus jobs, and student services continue operating normally during that window.

Religious Holidays and Observances at ASU

ASU does not close the university for religious holidays outside its eight designated closures, but it maintains a dedicated religious calendar and accommodation policy.

The calendar includes religious holidays, traditional observances, and major faith-based celebrations observed across ASU’s community, though the university remains open during most of the observances listed.

2026-2027 Religious Holiday Calendar by Semester

This resource is intended to support awareness, inclusion, and academic planning, and is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all religious holidays, observances, or faith communities represented at ASU.

Requesting a Religious Accommodation at ASU

Students should notify faculty of religious absences at the start of the semester; employees observing religious holidays must notify supervisors within ten working days of the semester’s start and arrange coverage or rescheduling in advance, consistent with ASU’s Accommodation for Religious Practices policy, ACD304-04.

Formal requests go through a Religious Accommodation Request Form administered by Student Accessibility and Inclusive Learning Services.

This policy is administered in coordination with ASU’s Council of Religious Advisors (CORA), a group comprised of campus ministries and faith-based organizations representing a diverse variety of faiths that provides religious services, spiritual counseling, and education across ASU’s campuses.

ASU Campus-Specific Calendar Notes

The Academic Calendar and Holiday Schedule apply uniformly across ASU’s Phoenix-metro campuses and its fully online division.

Tempe, Downtown Phoenix, Polytechnic, and West Valley Campuses

ASU’s West campus was renamed ASU West Valley in October 2023 to better reflect its role as a centerpiece of the fast-growing West Valley region, joining Tempe, Downtown Phoenix, and Polytechnic as ASU’s four Phoenix-metro campuses. None of the four maintains a separate holiday calendar; closures, breaks, and session dates are identical across all four locations.

ASU Online Academic Calendar

ASU Online students follow the same Session A, B, and C closures as in-person students but with different administrative deadlines. Spring 2027 registration opens September 28, 2026, for ASU Online students, three weeks ahead of the October 19, 2026, start date for in-person students, and the $50 late registration fee does not apply to ASU Online enrollment in any term.

ASU Lake Havasu Campus Closure

ASU permanently closed its Lake Havasu City location as of May 15, 2025, with its remaining students graduating that summer once their programs of study concluded. The Lake Havasu campus is not part of ASU’s current calendar system and does not apply to any 2026-2027 dates on this page — a change several older ASU calendar pages have not yet reflected.

Frequently Asked Questions About the ASU Holiday Calendar 2026-2027