Ramadan Working Hours: Planning Projects and Teams Through the Month

A project plan built on eight-hour days does not survive Ramadan in Riyadh or Dubai. Working hours are formally reduced in a number of countries during the month, meetings move earlier, and the month ends with Eid al-Fitr, a public holiday whose start date is confirmed late. If your plan counts days but not hours, it will overestimate capacity for a month or more.

When Ramadan falls

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. It lasts 29 or 30 days, depending on when the new crescent moon is sighted, and it moves about eleven days earlier in the Gregorian calendar each year. In 2027 it is expected to begin in early February, with the exact start and end confirmed by the relevant authorities close to the day. Over the next few years it will move further into winter.

What changes during the month

Practice varies widely, but some patterns are common:

• Statutory reductions. In some countries labour law sets shorter hours. Under the UAE's labour law, private sector working hours are reduced by two hours a day during Ramadan. Saudi Arabia's labour law caps working hours for Muslim employees at six hours a day during the month.
• Government announcements. In several countries, including Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan, public sector hours for Ramadan are announced each year. Private employers may follow or set their own.
• Shifted days. Offices often start later and finish in the early afternoon, so staff can be home for iftar, the meal that breaks the fast at sunset. Some businesses, especially retail, open late into the evening instead.
• Countries without formal changes. Elsewhere, including Muslim-majority countries with no statutory reduction, practice depends on the employer. Fasting colleagues in any country may prefer earlier meetings and lighter afternoons.

The rules can change, and they can apply differently to public and private sectors or to Muslim and non-Muslim employees. Check your contract or local rules, and read the current year's official announcements.

Worked example: counting hours, not days

Take a four-person team in Riyadh working Sunday to Thursday on eight-hour days. Assume Ramadan runs for 30 days starting on a Sunday and that all four team members are covered by the six-hour cap.

First count working days. Thirty days is four full weeks plus two extra days. The four weeks contain 4 × 5 = 20 working days. The two extra days are Sunday and Monday, both working days. Total: 22 working days.

The day count is identical, but capacity falls by 176 hours, or 25 per cent. A day-based plan would show nothing unusual. An hour-based plan shows that work estimated at 22 days now needs closer to 29 working days at the shorter schedule. Push that forward and you run into Eid al-Fitr, which in many countries brings several days of public holiday immediately after the month ends.

A mixed team needs a more careful count, because reduced hours may apply only to some employees. If two of the four in this example worked full hours, team capacity would be (2 × 176) + (2 × 132) = 616 hours, a 12.5 per cent reduction rather than 25 per cent.

Meetings and time zones

Shorter days also shrink the window for cross-border meetings. Suppose a Riyadh office runs a Ramadan schedule from 10:00 to 16:00 local time. Riyadh is three hours ahead of UTC, so that is 07:00 to 13:00 UTC. With London on UTC in February, a London team starting at 09:00 has a shared window of 09:00 to 13:00, four hours instead of the usual overlap. Later in the day, Riyadh colleagues will be preparing for iftar. The team overlap planner lets you set custom working hours for a location to see the effect.

Practical habits make a difference:

• Book important meetings in the morning, local time, for fasting colleagues.
• Avoid lunch meetings and food-focused team events.
• Keep review deadlines away from the last days of the month, when Eid timing is uncertain.
• Do not assume reduced responsiveness; ask the team how they want to work.

The Eid tail

The end of Ramadan is not a clean cut-off. Eid al-Fitr starts the day after the month ends, so it falls on one of two possible days, and the public holiday that follows is often several days long. Plan against the later possible return date. For counting deadlines that cross the holiday, use the add business days tool with the country's calendar and adjust once the holiday dates are confirmed.

Where this applies

Reduced Ramadan hours are most formalised in the Gulf states and parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Countries elsewhere in the Muslim world vary, and in countries where Muslims are a minority there is usually no general rule, although employers may offer flexibility. The country calendars show the Eid holidays for each country, and the business days calculator handles the day counts.

Service levels and customers

Reduced hours affect what you can promise externally, too. A support desk in Dubai or Riyadh covering fewer hours each day needs either more staff on shorter shifts or a temporarily longer response target. Customers in the region will generally expect slower responses in the afternoon and evening, while late-night retail and delivery demand can rise. If your service levels are written in business hours, check whether the contract defines those hours, and agree any Ramadan schedule with customers before the month starts.

Ramadan planning checklist

1. Pencil in the expected start and end of Ramadan, marked as provisional until confirmed.
2. For each location, find out the official working hours for the month and which staff they apply to.
3. Re-estimate the month's capacity in hours, not just days.
4. Move key meetings to the shared morning window and keep afternoons light.
5. Treat the final days of the month and Eid as unavailable for deliverables.
6. Recheck plans when the official Ramadan schedule and Eid holidays are announced.