January 2026 Printable Calendar – With Holidays

New Year's Day Opens the Month, MLK Day Closes Its Third Week

January 2026 starts on Thursday the 1st, so New Year's Day is both the first day of the month and the first day of the year. Its second federal holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, arrives on Monday the 19th — the third Monday of the month — leaving seventeen days between the two. Both dates shut federal buildings, banks, and post offices, and no postal delivery runs on either.

The Month in Numbers

January 2026 runs 31 days from Thursday the 1st to Saturday the 31st, with 22 weekdays and nine weekend days — five Saturdays (3, 10, 17, 24, 31) and four Sundays (4, 11, 18, 25). Removing the two holidays leaves 20 federal working days. The month opens with a four-day stretch before the first weekend and closes on a Saturday, so the final row carries a weekend with no working day after it. Twenty-two weekdays makes January the busiest month of the first quarter, level with March and two ahead of February.

A New Year's Day on Thursday

A Thursday holiday is awkward for a different reason than a Wednesday one: it leaves three working days behind it and, in this case, none in front. The year's first working day is Friday the 2nd, standing alone, and the first full working week does not begin until Monday the 5th. The practical response is to treat that single Friday as a handover day rather than a start date.

The Long Weekend in the Third Week

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is the easier of the two. Falling on Monday the 19th, it produces a three-day weekend and leaves Tuesday the 20th through Friday the 23rd intact. It is also the first of eight 2026 federal holidays that land on a Monday or a Friday and therefore extend a weekend, and it is the cheapest day off of the first quarter.

The Tax Date in the Middle of the Month

Thursday the 15th carries the fourth-quarter estimated tax payment for 2025, a deadline that arrives barely two weeks after the year it belongs to has ended. The same month closes with a second filing obligation: employers and payers must furnish W-2 and 1099 forms to recipients by the 31st, which falls on a Saturday in 2026 and is therefore usually handled on Friday the 30th. Both dates belong on the sheet before the month begins.

Resolutions, Budgets, and the Spring Semester

This is a month for arranging the year, not for closing it out. Budgets for the year are usually settled in the first two weeks, the spring semester's calendar is fixed by mid-month, and first-quarter projects get their schedules in the week of the 5th or the 12th. Enrollment windows, insurance changes, and membership renewals also cluster early, and most of them close before the 31st.

Printing the Holiday Version

One side of letter or A4 paper is enough, and every cell stays readable when the printer is set to monochrome. Marking the 1st and the 19th first, then boxing the five Saturdays and four Sundays, shows exactly how much of the month is available for work. Take a copy from the print button, or save the PDF to reopen whenever a date needs checking.