Belgrade in January 2027: Holidays, Weather and Events

Serbia's public holidays are set by the Law on State and Other Holidays. For January it lists New Year as a state holiday on 1 and 2 January, and the first day of Christmas, 7 January, as a religious holiday. On these days state bodies and companies do not work. The law allows exceptions for services that need to run continuously or cannot stop without causing harm.

• Friday 1 January and Saturday 2 January: New Year, non-working days.
• Wednesday 6 January: Christmas Eve (Badnji dan), a normal working day.
• Thursday 7 January: Orthodox Christmas, a non-working day.
• Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 January: Serbian New Year, working days.
• Wednesday 27 January: Saint Sava's Day, a working day.

The Sunday rule. The law says that when a state holiday falls on a Sunday, the first working day after it is also a day off. In 2027 no January holiday falls on a Sunday. 2 January is a Saturday, and the rule covers Sundays only, so Monday 4 January is a normal working day. The holiday calendar for 2027 on Paragraf, the Serbian legal database, lists the same three non-working days for January.

Friday 8 January, the day after Christmas, is not a holiday either. If you need an office, a bank branch or a government counter, plan around 1, 2 and 7 January.

Belgrade celebrates twice because the Serbian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar: Christmas falls on 7 January and the "old" New Year on the night of 13 to 14 January. We cover these in their own guides, so here is only the outline:

• 31 December to 1 January: parties, concerts and getting home are in our New Year's Eve guide.
• 6 and 7 January: the badnjak bonfire on Christmas Eve, the midnight liturgy and the Christmas table are in our guide to Orthodox Christmas and Serbian New Year, and the customs behind them in Slava and Orthodox Christmas.
• 13 to 14 January: the Serbian New Year is not a public holiday. The same guide covers how the city has marked it in recent years. When we checked on 1 November 2026, no programme for January 2027 had been announced.

If you arrive in late December, our guide to Belgrade in December covers the Christmas markets and ice rinks, some of which stay open into January.

Saint Sava, the first archbishop of the Serbian Church, is honoured on 27 January. The law lists the day among those that are "celebrated and marked while working", so it is a normal working day. Saint Sava's Day is also the slava (patron saint's day) of Serbian schools, a tradition that goes back to a law of 1840. In the 2026/27 school calendar, 27 January is named "Sveti Sava, Dan duhovnosti" (Saint Sava, Day of Spirituality) and is observed without classes, so schoolchildren do not have lessons that day.

We could not find a single official rule for shop, restaurant or museum hours on these days. The law sets out who does not work, but allows exceptions, so it does not tell you whether a particular shop, restaurant or museum will open. Check the opening hours of any shop, museum or restaurant before you go, and book a table if you want to eat out on 7 January.

Public transport. City buses, trams and trolleybuses in Belgrade are free (see our public transport guide), but they run fewer services on holidays. For 2025/26 the Secretariat for Public Transport announced this timetable:

• 31 December 2025: weekday timetable, with special late services on New Year's Eve.
• 1 and 2 January 2026: Sunday timetable.
• 3 January: Saturday timetable. 4 January: Sunday timetable. 5 January: weekday timetable.
• 6 January (Christmas Eve): Saturday timetable.
• 7 January (Christmas): Sunday timetable.
• 8 January: normal timetable again.

This was the timetable for last season. The timetable for the 2026/27 holidays had not been published when we checked on 1 November 2026, and the days of the week are different in 2027. Last season it was announced on 30 December, so check again at the end of December.

January is Belgrade's coldest month. The Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia (RHMZ) publishes long-term averages for its Belgrade station on Vračar. For January, its 1981-2010 averages are:

• Average temperature: 1.4°C.
• Average daily maximum and minimum: 4.6°C and -1.1°C.
• Frost days: 18 on average.
• Precipitation: 46.9 mm over the month, with rain or snow on 13 days.
• Snow: snow falls on 10 days and lies on the ground on 13 days on average.
• Sunshine: 72.2 hours for the whole month, with 14 cloudy days and 3 clear days on average. Fog is recorded on 5 days on average.

Those are averages. The coldest temperature in the same 1981-2010 series was -18.2°C, and the warmest January reading was 20.7°C, so a single January can be much colder or milder. Bring a warm coat, gloves and shoes that cope with snow and slush. For the rest of the year, see our guide to the best time to visit Belgrade.

These events are already in our calendar:

• 1 January: Bojan Suđić and the Virtuosi: New Year's Gala Concert at Sava Centar, and Lepa Brena's New Year Encore at the Hyatt Regency.
• 13 January: the New Year's Gala Concert at the National Theatre, on the main stage, on the eve of the Serbian New Year.
• 15 and 22 January: the Belgrade Philharmonic at the Kolarac Endowment, with Scaglione and Knyazev and then Smbatyan and Sidorova.
• 21 January: Legendary Rock Voices at Sava Centar.
• 24 January: the Gala Concert of Classical Ballet at the Vlada Divljan Cultural Centre.

EuroLeague basketball at the Belgrade Arena:

• 8 January: Crvena zvezda vs ASVEL Villeurbanne
• 12 January: Crvena zvezda vs Real Madrid
• 15 January: Partizan vs Fenerbahçe
• 21 January: Partizan vs Olympiacos
• 22 January: Crvena zvezda vs Barcelona

The derby between Crvena zvezda and Partizan comes later, in February. Our guide to the Eternal Derby explains how tickets work. We add new events as they are announced, so see the full list on our January 2027 events page.

• Ice skating: the open-air rinks belong to the winter markets. In the 2025/26 season the rink at Čarobna zima, in front of the Belgrade Arena, stayed open until 25 January. Dates for this winter had not been announced on 1 November 2026. Our December guide lists the rinks.
• Belgrade Winter: the city's free holiday programme, Beogradska zima, ran from 25 December 2025 until the end of January 2026, mostly for children and families.
• Museums: a cold day suits the National Museum of Serbia, the Museum of Yugoslavia or the Nikola Tesla Museum. Check their hours around the holidays.
• Kafanas: a traditional tavern such as Kafana Pod Lozom is a warm option on a cold evening. Our nightlife guide explains how kafana nights work, and our Serbian food guide covers winter dishes.
• Day trips: our day trips guide covers places within easy reach of the city.

Official sources and legal texts:

• Paragraf: Zakon o državnim i drugim praznicima u Republici Srbiji (Sl. glasnik RS 43/2001, 101/2007 and 92/2011)
• Paragraf: Neradni dani i praznici u Srbiji za 2027. godinu
• Paragraf: Pravilnik o kalendaru obrazovno-vaspitnog rada osnovne škole za školsku 2026/2027. godinu (Prosvetni glasnik 3/2026)
• RHMZ Srbije: Beograd station, mean monthly and extreme values 1981-2010

News reports:

• Danas: school calendar for 2026/27 (11 June 2026)
• N1: Danas je Sveti Sava, školska slava (27 January 2025)
• Novosti (Tanjug): public transport timetable for New Year and Christmas (30 December 2025)
• B92 (Tanjug): Belgrade Winter 2025/26 programme and rinks (31 December 2025)