All of Australia
School holidays by state and territory
No state or territory is on school holidays right now.
Term dates are set separately by each education department and they do not line up — the Territory breaks up for the middle of the year in June, Tasmania not until July, and Tasmania's Term 2 does not even start until May. Pick a jurisdiction for the dates and the sector differences.
Choose a state or territory
- School holidays NSW
In Term 3, next break Sat 26 Sep.
New South Wales splits its school year in two: the far west starts a week later than everyone else, and the department’s published holiday dates are shorter than the break your child actually gets.
- School holidays VIC
In Term 3, next break Sat 19 Sep.
Victoria settles its term dates five years ahead by ministerial determination, so its calendar is the most predictable in the country — and its teachers go back a day before its students.
- School holidays QLD
In Term 3, next break Sat 19 Sep.
Queensland counts a school holiday from the Saturday after term ends to the Sunday before it resumes, so its own figures are longer than most — and its Term 4 finishes earlier than anywhere else.
- School holidays WA
In Term 3, next break Sat 26 Sep.
Western Australia gazettes its term dates the same way it gazettes its public holidays, and publishes them six years ahead — further than any other state.
- School holidays SA
In Term 3, next break Sat 26 Sep.
South Australia runs a long Term 1 that stretches past Easter, and publishes its holiday periods Saturday to Sunday so they read longer than the school week suggests.
- School holidays TAS
In Term 3, next break Sat 3 Oct.
Tasmania runs on its own rhythm entirely: Term 1 stretches to mid-April, Term 2 does not begin until May, and its professional learning days differ between the north and the south.
- School holidays ACT
In Term 3, next break Sat 26 Sep.
Canberra is the only place in the country that gives new students a different first day from everyone else — and the only one where a Year 12 exam timetable, not the calendar, decides the last day.
- School holidays NT
In Term 3, next break Sat 19 Sep.
The Territory finishes Term 2 in mid-June, earlier than anywhere else in the country, and gives every term a separate teacher and student start date.
Whose calendar is it?
Three sectors, three sets of dates
Every page here publishes the education department's dates, which cover government schools. Catholic systemic schools sit close to them without being bound by them, and independent schools set their own calendars outright — commonly starting and finishing a few days earlier.
That is not a footnote. It is why searching for your state's school holidays returns the department, an independent schools association and somebody's individual school all at once, with different dates. They are answering for different children.
Public holidays fall inside term time and are a separate list again — see public holidays by state, where every date is checked against that jurisdiction's own Act.