Turkey's 2026–27 School Holidays: November Break, Winter Break and March Break Dates

Turkey's state schools close for their first mid-term break (ara tatil) from Monday 16 November to Friday 20 November 2026, and lessons resume on Monday 23 November. The dates come from the 2026–2027 working-calendar circular (genelge) signed by National Education Minister Yusuf Tekin and sent to all 81 provincial education directorates, which the Ministry of National Education (MEB) announced on 13 June 2026. The same circular sets a two-week winter break (yarıyıl tatili) from 25 January to 5 February 2027 and a second mid-term break from 8 to 12 March 2027. Despite a September debate, the 2026–27 calendar keeps both mid-term breaks.

Key dates (MEB announcement of 13 June 2026 unless noted): 1 September 2026 (Tue): teachers begin preparatory professional work. 7–11 September 2026: adaptation week for pre-school and first-grade pupils. 14 September 2026 (Mon): first term begins. 16–20 November 2026: first mid-term break; classes resume 23 November. 22 January 2027 (Fri): first term ends. 25 January – 5 February 2027: winter break (yarıyıl). 8 February 2027 (Mon): second term begins. 8–12 March 2027: second mid-term break. 25 June 2027 (Fri): school year ends. 28–30 June 2027: teachers' end-of-year professional work (reported by NTV from the same circular).

When is the November break, and is it 5 days or 9?

Officially the November break covers five school days, Monday 16 to Friday 20 November. Because it sits between two weekends, the last day of lessons is Friday 13 November and the first day back is Monday 23 November, so pupils are out of school for nine consecutive days, from Saturday 14 to Sunday 22 November. Milli Gazete set out this arithmetic on 5 October. Republic Day on 29 October comes two and a half weeks earlier and is a separate holiday.

Winter break, report cards and the March break

The first term ends on Friday 22 January 2027, the day pupils traditionally receive their first-term report card (karne), although MEB's announcement does not name a separate karne day. The winter break then runs for two school weeks, Monday 25 January to Friday 5 February 2027. Counting the weekends on both sides, children are off from Saturday 23 January to Sunday 7 February, 16 days in total, and the second term opens on Monday 8 February. End-of-year report cards follow on the final school day, Friday 25 June 2027. The second mid-term break runs from Monday 8 to Friday 12 March 2027. According to the 2027 religious-holiday calendar published by CNN Türk on 28 July 2026, 8 March is the eve (arefe) of Ramazan Bayramı and the festival itself falls on 9–11 March. In practice the school break and the holiday overlap almost entirely, rather than adding extra days off. With the weekends either side, pupils are out from Saturday 6 March to Sunday 14 March 2027 and return on Monday 15 March.

Are Turkey's mid-term breaks being abolished?

No decision to abolish them has been announced, and the 2026–27 calendar keeps both. The question comes from a live CNN Türk interview on 19 September 2026, reported by TRT Haber, Star (via Anadolu Agency) and others. Tekin said the breaks would continue as long as they could be placed in the calendar, but might not be applied in years when that proved difficult. He cited three constraints: pupils must attend 180 school days, teachers are legally entitled to two months of holiday, and for the past two or three years Ramazan and Kurban bayrams have fallen in the weeks planned for the breaks. The current two-break model is relatively new. NTV reported in November 2019 that MEB had split a 15-day mid-year break into two one-week breaks, one in November and one in spring; the first, from 18 to 22 November 2019, affected about 18 million pupils and 957,000 teachers. Whether it survives after 2026–27 will depend on how the 2027–28 calendar handles the bayrams, which shift earlier in the Gregorian calendar every year.

Do teachers, private schools and universities get the break? And Germany?

For teachers the break has not always been a holiday. In October 2023 MEB instructed teachers and administrators to be at their schools for in-person professional-development seminars during the 13–17 November break, CNN Türk reported. As of 26 October 2026 we found no equivalent instruction for 16–20 November 2026; the June circular as reported lists teacher professional work only in September 2026 and June 2027. The circular applies to schools under MEB's provincial directorates; press coverage does not set out separate rules for private schools, so parents should check their school's own calendar. Universities are outside the MEB calendar: there is no national university mid-term break, and each university publishes its own academic calendar.

For Turkish families in Germany, the picture is different: apart from the summer holidays, which the Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK) coordinates long-term, each federal state sets its own school holidays. The KMK's 2026/27 table shows autumn holidays ranging from 5–17 October in Hesse to 2–6 November in Bavaria; North Rhine-Westphalia's run from 17 to 31 October and Baden-Württemberg's from 26 to 30 October. None overlaps with Turkey's 16–20 November break, so children in a German school cannot combine the two.

What happens next

The November break starts on 16 November 2026; any MEB instruction on teacher seminars for that week would normally come in the weeks before. The first term closes with report cards on 22 January 2027, the March break and Ramazan Bayramı follow on 8–12 March, and the school year ends on 25 June 2027. The 2027–28 calendar, which MEB published in mid-June this year, will show whether Tekin's caveat about fitting the breaks around religious holidays leads to any change. This page will be updated when it appears.