Start with the right dates for your school
Before booking anything, confirm two things: which state and year page on this site matches your school, and whether your school is a government, Catholic or independent school. Government dates are the main reference used on every state page here, but Catholic and independent schools often set their own pupil-free days and can start or finish a break a day or two earlier or later. A quick check with your school avoids booking travel around the wrong dates.
Book travel around the edges of the break, not the middle
Flight and accommodation prices generally peak in the first and last few days of each school holiday period, when every family in the state is travelling at once. If your plans are flexible, leaving a day or two after the break officially starts, or returning a day or two before it ends, can make a noticeable difference to price and availability — especially around the long summer break and the two-week spring and autumn breaks.
If you’re travelling between states, remember that break dates don’t line up nationally. A family travelling from Queensland to Tasmania, for example, might find their two states’ spring breaks only partly overlap, which affects both travel pricing and how much overlap you actually get with a relative or friend in the other state. Compare the specific state pages on this site before locking in dates.
Watch for time zones and daylight saving
Western Australia does not observe daylight saving, so from October to April it can be two to three hours behind the eastern states rather than the usual two. Queensland also does not observe daylight saving. If you’re coordinating video calls, flight connections or activity bookings across states during the holidays, double check the current time difference rather than assuming it matches the rest of the year.
Use a calendar file instead of re-checking manually
Every state and year page on this site has an iCal (.ics) calendar download that you can import directly into Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar, so term dates and holiday breaks show up automatically alongside the rest of your family’s schedule. This is particularly useful if you’re juggling more than one state’s dates, or planning more than a year ahead. The calendar downloads page has the full list together with import instructions for each calendar app.
Confirm pupil-free days separately
Pupil-free days (sometimes called student-free days or curriculum days) are extra days during the term when students don’t attend but staff do, usually for training or reporting. These are set by individual schools rather than published centrally by state governments, so they generally won’t appear in the term date tables on this site. If you’re arranging childcare around the school term, check your own school’s calendar or newsletter for these dates specifically.
A simple planning checklist
- Confirm your school type (government, Catholic or independent) and check its own calendar against the state dates shown here.
- Check public holidays inside the break using the public holidays table on your state’s year page, since these can affect trading hours, activity bookings and travel pricing.
- Book accommodation and flights early, especially for the summer break and any break that includes a public holiday long weekend.
- Import the calendar file for your state and year so the dates stay visible alongside the rest of your household’s schedule.
- Re-check closer to the date, particularly for years more than 12 months away, since some states revise or confirm details as the year approaches.