Public holidays in São Tomé and Príncipe

Thirteen national holidays, on the lists of the tourism office, Wikipedia and timeanddate alike: New Year's Day, King Amador Day, Martyrs' Day, Ash Wednesday, Labour Day, Children's Day, Independence Day, Armed Forces Day, Agricultural Reform Day, All Souls' Day, Algiers Agreement Day, São Tomé Day and Christmas. Five of them, King Amador Day, Ash Wednesday, Children's Day, All Souls' Day and Algiers Agreement Day, are not in the calendar on file.

Amador, also called Rei Amador or Amador dos Angolares, led the largest slave revolt on São Tomé, in July 1595. He recruited about 5,000 enslaved people, raided the town three times and destroyed 60 of the island's 85 sugar mills before the militia defeated the rising after three weeks; he was executed. He declared himself king of the Angolares, and 4 January is kept in his name.

Rumours spread that the colonial government would seize the land of the forros, the islands' creole population, and force them into contract labour on the roças. The governor blamed communists and called colonists to arms, and over the following days militias, troops and plantation workers killed hundreds of forros. Martyrs' Day marks it, and the massacre is remembered as the event that gave the independence movement its momentum.

It is the anniversary of the Algiers agreement. Portugal and the MLSTP signed it on 26 November 1974, after the fall of the dictatorship in Lisbon, and it set the terms for handing over power. Independence followed on 12 July 1975, less than eight months later.

Timeanddate lists the following Monday as a day off. In 2026 three holidays fell on a Sunday, King Amador Day, Independence Day and Armed Forces Day, and the Mondays after them, 5 January, 13 July and 7 September, appear in its list. No national holiday falls on a Sunday in 2027. Labour Day and Christmas fall on a Saturday that year, and the sources do not say whether a Saturday holiday moves.

Labour Day on Friday 1 May and Christmas on Friday 25 December each make a three-day weekend, and São Tomé Day on Monday 21 December gives another, so the end of December holds two long weekends four days apart. On the full national list, Children's Day on Monday 1 June and All Souls' Day on Monday 2 November add two more. Friday 2 January, taken as leave, would join New Year's Day to the weekend.

Three things at once. It is the feast of Saint Thomas, the patron of the main island; the day the Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pêro Escobar reached the island, in 1470, or 1471 in some accounts; and the day the transitional government that prepared independence took office in 1974.

Yes. Quarta-feira de Cinzas is on the national list, the one holiday without a fixed date, and locally it goes by the name Dia do Bocado. It closes Carnival and opens the forty days of Lent. Timeanddate puts it on Wednesday 18 February 2026, though the day is missing from the calendar on file.