Boxing Day

Boxing Day entered Ghana’s calendar through British colonial public-holiday practice on the day after Christmas. Its name is historically associated with gifts or ‘Christmas boxes’ for workers and people in need, not the sport of boxing. Ghana retained the date after independence, while the day’s present meaning is largely family, leisure, charity and continuation of year-end travel.

The holiday is socially connected to Christmas but legally distinct and open to residents of every faith. Picnics, football, beach outings, concerts and visits may occur, yet none is an official nationwide ritual. The 2026 date fell on Saturday; the Interior Ministry’s annual schedule also listed Monday, December 28 as the public-holiday day off despite the 2025 guidance excluding Boxing Day from the general automatic substitution rule.

Boxing Day is in the First Schedule to the Public Holidays and Commemorative Days Act, 2001 (Act 601), as amended most recently by Act 1142 of 2025. Section 4 generally prohibits opening a shop or engaging in business on a public holiday, but exempts food and grocery shops, pharmacies, licensed restaurants and hotels, food markets, licensed liquor premises and essential services including health care, utilities, aviation, fuel, telecommunications and public transport. Labour Act 651 section 72 preserves workers’ remuneration; temporary and casual staff who work receive the additional payment specified by section 77. Weekend or midweek movement is not automatic: it requires an Executive Instrument, and the 2025 rules contain stated exclusions, so the Ministry’s annual notices control the actual closure date.