Boxing Day (Proclamation Day in South Australia) 2026

Type of holiday: statutory public holiday, a non-working day.

Boxing Day, on 26 December, is a public holiday in every Australian state and territory. In South Australia the same date carries a different official name, Proclamation Day, reflecting the state's own distinct colonial history rather than the British tradition behind Boxing Day elsewhere.

Two different stories on the same date

Boxing Day itself comes from British tradition, historically a day associated with giving gifts or boxes to servants and tradespeople the day after Christmas, and it was carried into Australian practice as a public holiday alongside Christmas Day. South Australia, however, uses 26 December to commemorate something entirely different: Proclamation Day marks the formal proclamation of the colony of South Australia at Glenelg on 28 December 1836, an event that the state has long chosen to observe with a public holiday scheduled to fall immediately after Christmas.

How the day is spent

For most of the country, 26 December is dominated by two major sporting fixtures: the Boxing Day Test cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which draws enormous crowds and television audiences every year, and the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, whose fleet departs Sydney Harbour that afternoon in one of the country's most recognisable sporting spectacles. Boxing Day is also one of the biggest retail trading days of the year, with post-Christmas sales drawing large crowds to shopping centres nationwide, a sharp contrast to the closures of the day before.

Where it's observed

• Every state and territory observes 26 December as a public holiday
• In South Australia, the same public holiday is officially named Proclamation Day rather than Boxing Day

Why South Australia uses a different name

South Australia's colonial founding was a distinct historical event from the establishment of the other Australian colonies, and the state has maintained its own naming convention for the holiday to reflect that separate history, even though the date lines up with Boxing Day everywhere else and the practical experience of the public holiday is much the same.

Substitute days

Like Christmas Day, 26 December is a fixed calendar date, so it can fall on any day of the week. When it lands on a weekend, or when the flow-on effect of Christmas Day substitutions applies, jurisdictions schedule substitute public holidays on the following Monday or Tuesday so that both Christmas and Boxing Day holidays are preserved as full days off, even in years when the fixed dates themselves fall on a Saturday or Sunday.

Shops and transport

Unlike Christmas Day, Boxing Day does not carry the same blanket trading restrictions, and major retailers open, often from early morning, to run post-Christmas sales. Public transport typically returns closer to a normal timetable compared with the reduced Christmas Day service, though some routes may still run on modified holiday hours, particularly around major event precincts such as the MCG and Sydney Harbour.

Planning around the day

Given the scale of Boxing Day sales and major sporting events, transport and parking around capital city centres can be significantly busier than usual, so allowing extra time is worthwhile for anyone heading into the city for shopping or to watch the cricket or the yacht race start in person.