How do you greet someone on Hari Raya Puasa?

Say "Selamat Hari Raya", often followed by "Maaf Zahir dan Batin", a request for forgiveness for wrongs both seen and unseen. Non-Muslim colleagues and neighbours use it freely and it is taken well.

How long is Hari Raya celebrated in Singapore?

The public holiday is one day. The celebrating is not: visiting and open houses run through Syawal, the Islamic month that follows Ramadan, so invitations can arrive three or four weeks after the holiday itself.

Do I need to book a place for the Aidilfitri prayer?

In recent years, almost never. For 2026 MUIS required booking for one session at one mosque only, with everything else walk-in. That was not always so: in 2021 and 2022 every place had to be booked. Check the current arrangement on the MUIS site before the day.

Is Hari Raya Puasa a public holiday in Singapore?

Yes. It is one of Singapore’s gazetted public holidays, so it is a paid day off for employees covered by the Employment Act. What you get when it falls on a weekend depends on whether that day is your rest day or a non-working day.

What do people eat at Hari Raya?

The table is usually built around ketupat (compressed rice in woven palm leaf), rendang, lemang and a spread of kuih. Open houses put all of it out at once, and guests are expected to eat rather than decline politely.

Hari Raya Puasa (Aidilfitri) in Singapore

Hari Raya Puasa (Aidilfitri) in Singapore 2027 falls on Wednesday, 10 March 2027, a gazetted public holiday.

What the day marks

Aidilfitri is the first day of Syawal, the Islamic month that follows Ramadan, and it closes the month of fasting. It is the larger of Singapore's two Hari Raya holidays, and the one most people mean when they say Hari Raya without qualifying it. The date is not fixed to the Gregorian calendar: it moves about 11 days earlier each year and is set by MUIS from calculated crescent visibility, which the guide to why the date moves works through in full.

One obligation lands before the celebration rather than on it. Zakat fitrah, the small per-person alms MUIS recalculates every Ramadan, must be paid before the Aidilfitri prayer, not merely at some point during Ramadan. That deadline is the part people most often get wrong; the zakat fitrah guide has the current rates and the payment channels.

The morning: prayer, and the crush

The day begins the night before, when the takbir is recited at mosques and at home once the end of Ramadan is confirmed. On the morning itself, families put on new traditional dress, the baju kurung for women and the baju melayu for men, and go to the congregational prayer.

The scale of that prayer is worth knowing before you turn up. For Aidilfitri 2026, mosques offered roughly 240,000 prayer spaces across up to three sessions, with a further 24,000 at up to 49 supplementary venues, nearly 30 per cent more supplementary capacity than the year before. Booking was required for the first session at Masjid Darul Ghufran and nowhere else (MUIS). MUIS asks anyone with flexibility to take the second or third session or to go to a less crowded mosque, and asks drivers to carpool and park considerately. Read that as what it is: the first session at a large mosque is the pressure point, the later ones are easier, and the roads around the big mosques are heavy early.

It has not always looked like this. In 2020 the mosques were shut for Aidilfitri and the takbir was led from home over SalamSG TV. In 2021 each mosque was allowed three sessions of 100 people, split into zones of 50. In 2022, 66 mosques offered 153,250 booked spaces. The arrangement is rebuilt every year, so check the current one rather than last year's.

Then the visiting, which is the actual event

After the prayer, the day turns into visiting. The young perform the salam, bowing to take the hands of elders and ask forgiveness, and by custom rather than rule the order runs outward: parents and grandparents first, then the wider family, then friends and neighbours. Households keep open house, and elders give duit raya in small green packets to children. How much to put in the packet is the question everyone actually has, and the duit raya guide gives the ranges people really use.

The public holiday is one day, but the visiting is not. It continues through Syawal, so an open house invitation two or three weekends after Hari Raya is normal rather than late. If you are invited as a non-Muslim colleague, that is the part to accept.

What is open, and what the day off is worth

Hari Raya Puasa is a gazetted public holiday, so government offices, banks and schools close and it is a paid day off for employees covered by the Employment Act (MOM). Malls, public transport and most retail run as usual, so for anyone not celebrating the practical effect is a day off and heavier traffic around the larger mosques in the morning.

What that day off is actually worth depends on the weekday, and the rule is asymmetric. If Aidilfitri falls on your rest day, usually Sunday, the following Monday becomes the paid public holiday, which is what happened in 2020. If it falls on a non-working day, which Saturday is on a five-day week, nothing rolls forward: you get another day off or one extra day of salary at the gross rate, and your employer picks which (MOM). Aidilfitri landed on a Saturday in 2023 and again in 2026, and neither year produced a long weekend.

The bazaar is a Ramadan thing, not a Hari Raya thing

People plan a trip to Geylang Serai for Hari Raya and get the timing backwards. The Hari Raya light-up and the bazaar go up before the fasting month, not after it: in 2026 the Wisma Geylang Serai light-up was switched on 14 February (PMO), five days before Ramadan began on 19 February (MUIS). The crowds peak in the last week of Ramadan, when people shop late after breaking fast. By Aidilfitri morning it is over and everyone is at home or at a mosque. If the bazaar is what you want, go during Ramadan.

The other Hari Raya

Singapore gazettes a second one. Hari Raya Haji (Aidiladha) falls about 68 days later, marks the Haj pilgrimage rather than the end of fasting, and is quieter: prayer and the korban rather than a visiting circuit. The Puasa versus Haji guide sets the two side by side.

Dates by year

202024 May 202113 May 20223 May 202322 Apr 202410 Apr 202531 Mar 202621 Mar 202710 Mar

Gazetted dates. Each year links to what was specific to that year.

Common questions

How do you greet someone on Hari Raya Puasa?: Say "Selamat Hari Raya", often followed by "Maaf Zahir dan Batin", a request for forgiveness for wrongs both seen and unseen. Non-Muslim colleagues and neighbours use it freely and it is taken well.
How long is Hari Raya celebrated in Singapore?: The public holiday is one day. The celebrating is not: visiting and open houses run through Syawal, the Islamic month that follows Ramadan, so invitations can arrive three or four weeks after the holiday itself.
Do I need to book a place for the Aidilfitri prayer?: In recent years, almost never. For 2026 MUIS required booking for one session at one mosque only, with everything else walk-in. That was not always so: in 2021 and 2022 every place had to be booked. Check the current arrangement on the MUIS site before the day.
Is Hari Raya Puasa a public holiday in Singapore?: Yes. It is one of Singapore’s gazetted public holidays, so it is a paid day off for employees covered by the Employment Act. What you get when it falls on a weekend depends on whether that day is your rest day or a non-working day.
What do people eat at Hari Raya?: The table is usually built around ketupat (compressed rice in woven palm leaf), rendang, lemang and a spread of kuih. Open houses put all of it out at once, and guests are expected to eat rather than decline politely.

See Hari Raya 2027 in full →