The State Duma called for December 31 to be made a day off in Russia "once and for all."

In Russia, it is necessary to make December 31 a day off by postponing January 8 and to adhere to this decision on an ongoing basis. This was announced by Yaroslav Nilov, head of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans' Affairs, on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2026).

"What exactly needs to be done is painlessly, it would be right to make December 31 a day off. Without disturbing the balance, January 8 should be postponed to December 31," he said.

The corresponding step, as Nilov explained in a conversation with TASS, will allow to keep the total number of non-working days allocated for the celebration of the New Year.

At the moment, December 31 is recognized as a working day in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, but in recent years there have been regular discussions in the State Duma about the duration of the New Year and May holidays, as the authorities are already postponing one of the weekends to such dates.

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Vladislav Grib, Deputy Secretary of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, made a proposal a day earlier to make December 31 a working day and move the day off to May. Arguing his position, he turned to the example of other countries and stated that nowhere in the world is the last day of December free from work. The OP representative clarified that there is enough time for rest in January, so it is important to logically group potential non-working days.