It’s the beginning of a new month and naturally, people are bound to finish all their work as soon as possible. All private and public sector banks will remain shut for up to 12 days in December this year, as per a notification by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Reserve Bank of India has issued a list of holidays for the year 2021 in its annual list. The holidays have been prepared according to this list. There are up to seven state-wise holidays, including Christmas. However, Christmas falls on the second Saturday of the month, which is already a notified holiday for banks. So, adding up the seven holidays and six weekend leaves, the net number of bank holiday in December sums up to 12, with Christmas overlapping.

Since banks are going to remain closed for 12 days, if you want to do some bank-related work, you must take a note of these bank holidays in November to smoothly carry out the work. On that note, you should also keep in mind that it should not be much of a concern as these bank holidays  are largely state-wise. This means that they are not usually uniform in nature. For example, there will be a bank holiday on December 3 in Goa on the account of the Feast of St. Francis Xavier in the state, but services will be available in the other parts of the country. This is why, customers are usually advised to check with their nearest branch for the exact information about bank holidays.

Bank holidays come into effect as per a list released by the Reserve Bank of India or RBI. According to a list by the central bank, the number of holidays has been fixed at 11 this month. The remaining are the weekend leaves. This includes all Sundays of the month, as well as second and fourth Saturdays. Banks remain open on the first and third Saturdays of every month. The RBI’s list of holidays falls into three categories. These are state-wise celebrations, religious holidays and festival celebrations.

The central bank’s notification for holidays has been notified under three brackets, including ‘Holiday under Negotiable Instruments Act’, ‘Holiday under Negotiable Instruments Act and Real Time Gross Settlement Holiday’ and ‘Banks’ Closing of Accounts’. On these notified holidays, all branches of banks, which includes the public sector, private sector, foreign banks, cooperative banks and regional banks, will remain shut.

Even if Christmas was not on a weekend, banks would have remained shut in every part of the country. These include — Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Panaji, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi, Shillong, Shimla, Srinagar and Thiruvananthapuram.

On this note, let’s take a look at the list of holidays when banks will be closed during the month of December, so that you can make a schedule accordingly.

Here is the full list of holidays for the month of December 2021, as per RBI mandate: (Counting from December 1 onwards)

List of Leaves as per the Holiday Under Negotiable Instruments Act

December 3: Feast of St. Francis Xavier — Goa

December 18: Death Anniversary of U SoSo Tham — Shillong

December 24: Christmas Festival (Christmas Eve) — Aizawl, Shillong

December 25: Christmas — Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Panaji, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi, Shillong, Shimla, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram

December 27: Christmas Celebration — Aizawl

December 30: U Kiang Nangbah — Shillong

December 31: New Year’s Eve — Aizawl

Apart from the varying state-wise holidays. The banks will remain closed on some of the days of the weekends. It must be noted in this regard that weekend leaves are uniform in nature across India. These are mentioned below:

December 5: Sunday

December 11: Second Saturday of the month

December 12: Sunday

December 19: Sunday

December 25: Fourth Saturday of the month and Christmas

December 26: Sunday