The Two Weeks in 2027 When Every State Is on School Holidays

In all of 2027, there are only 20 days when every Australian state and territory is on school holidays at the same time — and 18 of those 20 fall inside two nine-day blocks: Saturday 3 to Sunday 11 July and Saturday 25 September to Sunday 3 October. In week terms, that is the week beginning Monday 5 July and the week beginning Monday 27 September. Those are the weeks when roughly four million school children are off at once, and they are the weeks to book around if you can choose. Every other break week in the country has somewhere between one and five states off, not eight.

We worked this out by reading all eight state and territory education departments' own 2027 calendars on 23 September 2026, then lining the breaks up against each other. The dates are below in full, along with which break is quietest for your state.

Key takeaways

• Only two weeks in 2027 put all eight states and territories on holiday together — the weeks beginning 5 July and 27 September. Between them they account for 18 of the year's 20 fully-national holiday days; the other two are the weekend of 10–11 April.
• Autumn 2027 has no national pile-up at all. Victoria and Queensland break from 26 March; New South Wales, the ACT, WA, SA and Tasmania not until 10 April. The two groups overlap on one weekend and nothing more.
• Australia's school year runs on two clocks in 2027. An early group (VIC, QLD, and broadly the NT) and a later group (NSW, ACT, WA, SA, TAS) sit about a fortnight apart for all three mid-year breaks.
• Not every family's holidays are equally crowded. Across their own break days, WA, SA and Tasmanian families share the country with an average of 5.3 other states on holiday. Victorian, Queensland and NT families share it with 3.9.
• The quietest pre-Christmas week is 13 December 2027, when Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory have broken up and the other five states still have a week of school to run.

Why 2027 splits the country in two

Easter falls early in 2027 — Good Friday is 26 March and Easter Monday 29 March. Victoria and Queensland end Term 1 on Thursday 25 March and start their autumn break at Easter. New South Wales, the ACT, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania do the opposite: they keep going for another fortnight, treating Good Friday and Easter Monday as public holidays inside Term 1, and break on 10 April.

That single decision cascades through the rest of the year. The early group stays roughly a fortnight ahead at every subsequent break, so the two groups only ever meet where their breaks happen to overlap at the edges.

Every state's 2027 school holidays

First and last day off, derived from each department's published first and last student days. These are government school dates — independent and Catholic schools usually sit within a few days but set their own calendars, so check your child's school before you book anything.

Two things in that table are easy to miss. The Northern Territory's winter break is the country's longest at 24 days, running from 19 June while everyone else is still at school. And ANZAC Day 2027 falls on a Sunday, so Western Australia's own calendar notes that Monday 26 April is expected to be a public holiday in lieu. That Monday is when South Australian and Tasmanian students go back. WA's gazetted Term 2 start is the same day, but with the holiday in lieu expected, the first day WA students are actually in class is likely to be Tuesday 27 April.

For the current break and the next one, our school holiday dates page keeps every state's window up to date.

Which of your breaks is the quiet one?

The chart below answers a question no calendar does: across all the days your own state is on holiday, how many other states are on holiday at the same time?

The gap is real and it is not random. Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania share their breaks with 5.3 other states on average; Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory with 3.9. The reason is simply that the later-breaking group is larger, so if you are in it, you are travelling with more of the country than if you are not.

For every state, the pattern across the year is the same shape:

• Autumn is the quietest break — 2.1 other states for a Victorian or Queensland family, 4.4 even for the most crowded (WA, SA, TAS).
• Spring is the busiest — 4.8 to 5.8 other states, everywhere, though for five of the eight it exactly ties winter. If you have one break you would rather not travel in, it is this one.

So the most useful single sentence we can give a Melbourne or Brisbane family is: take your big trip in the autumn break, not the spring one. For a Perth, Adelaide or Hobart family, the autumn break is still the best of the three, but the quiet weeks are the ones at the start of it, before the group you are in has fully broken up.

The quiet weeks, named

If you can pick your week rather than your season, these are the ones with three states or fewer on holiday:

• Week of Mon 29 March — Victoria and Queensland only (2 states).
• Week of Mon 5 April — Victoria, Queensland and the NT (3).
• Week of Mon 21 June — the Northern Territory alone (1). The quietest holiday week of the entire year.
• Week of Mon 28 June — Victoria, Queensland, NT (3).
• Week of Mon 20 September — Victoria, Queensland, NT (3).
• Week of Mon 13 December — Queensland, SA and the NT have finished; the other five have not.

And the two to avoid if you have a choice: week of Mon 5 July and week of Mon 27 September, both with all eight on holiday.

What is actually on in your state that week

A quiet week only helps if there is something to do in it. These are the kids' activities and holiday programs listed on AroundSchools in each state, from our Kids' Activity Index (July 2026 — 7,911 activities across 2,836 suburbs):

One caveat worth stating plainly, because it changes what you should expect to find: 7,828 of those 7,911 activities carry a sport tag, and only 126 a music one — a listing can hold more than one tag, so the two do not add up to the total. If your child is not a sporty one, the holiday options in most suburbs are thinner than that headline number suggests — we wrote about what to do when your child doesn't like sport separately.

City holiday programs are collected per city: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin.

What we are not telling you

We are not publishing flight or accommodation prices. We could not verify a current, primary-source set of Australian domestic holiday fares in the course of writing this, and a made-up saving is worse than none — so what you have above is the demand side only: when the competition for seats, cabins and campsites is at its highest, and when it is not.

We are also not suggesting you take your child out of school in term time. Every quiet week named above is a week your own state is already on holiday. The point is that not all of your holiday weeks cost the same, and the cheap ones are knowable more than a year ahead.

One date is on a slightly weaker footing than the rest: the Northern Territory's 2027 calendar blocks automated access, so we read it through a text proxy rather than directly. The figures matched a second reading, but if you are in the NT, confirm against the department's own page before you book.

Frequently asked questions

When are all Australian states on school holidays at the same time in 2027?

Only during the week beginning Monday 5 July and the week beginning Monday 27 September. Counted as individual days, all eight are on holiday together from Saturday 3 to Sunday 11 July and again from Saturday 25 September to Sunday 3 October — 18 days. Add the weekend of 10–11 April and the year's total is 20 days.

Which state has the longest school holidays in 2027?

For a single break, the Northern Territory: its winter break runs 19 June to 12 July, 24 days. Across the three in-year breaks, New South Wales has the most days off at 53.

Why do Victoria and Queensland break earlier than the other states in 2027?

Easter is early in 2027 — Good Friday is 26 March. Victoria and Queensland finish Term 1 on 25 March and take their autumn break from Easter. The other states and territories keep Term 1 running for another fortnight and treat Good Friday and Easter Monday as public holidays during term.

When do schools break up for Christmas in 2027?

Between 9 and 20 December, depending on where you live. The Northern Territory finishes first (Thursday 9 December), then Queensland and South Australia (Friday 10 December), WA and Tasmania (Thursday 16 December), Victoria and the ACT (Friday 17 December), and New South Wales last (Monday 20 December).

Are these dates the same for private schools?

No. These are government school student dates. Independent and Catholic schools set their own calendars and commonly differ by a few days at either end, particularly for the final day of Term 4. Check your own school's calendar before booking.

How we checked

Every term date above was read from the relevant department's own published 2027 calendar on 23 September 2026:

• NSW — education.nsw.gov.au 2027 term dates (Eastern Division dates; Western Division schools start Term 1 later)
• Victoria — vic.gov.au school term dates
• Queensland — education.qld.gov.au future school dates
• Western Australia — education.wa.edu.au future term dates, as published in the Government Gazette
• South Australia — education.sa.gov.au term dates
• Tasmania — decyp.tas.gov.au term dates
• ACT — the ACT Government's published school term dates 2026–30
• Northern Territory — nt.gov.au school term dates, read via a text proxy

Breaks are calculated as the days between one term's last student day and the next term's first student day. A state is counted as "on holiday" in a given week when its break covers at least four days of that week. The crowding figure is the average number of other states also on holiday, taken across every day of that state's own three in-year breaks. The 56 dates in the table were each checked against their stated day of the week. Activity counts come from the AroundSchools Kids' Activity Index, July 2026. National enrolment context (4,160,918 students in 9,673 schools) is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Schools, 2025, released 5 March 2026.

Related reading

• School starting age in Australia: 2027 cut-off dates for every state — the other 2027 date every parent needs.
• What kids actually do outside school — the national participation data behind the activity counts above.
• What kids' sport really costs — if holiday programs are stretching the budget.
• School cost help, state by state — the payments and waivers available where you live.