Sending to the Eastern Caribbean: nine calendars

The East Caribbean dollar is one currency with one central bank and one shared clearing house. It is not one calendar. The Eastern Caribbean Automated Clearing House publishes nine holiday lists for 2026: one that applies to the entire currency union, and one for each of the eight territories in it.

Key Takeaways

• The clearing house publishes seven union-wide dates for 2026, from Thursday January 1st New Year's Day to Monday December 28th Boxing Day.
• Its eight territorial lists add 47 further entries between them, and every territory carries at least five.
• Monday August 3rd appears on five of the eight lists under three different names, and is not on the union list. August 1st and August 4th are shared too, by three territories and by two.
• Four entries fall on a Sunday and all four are marked as celebrated on the Monday following. Six fall on a Saturday and none is.
• The rate is union-wide and the calendar is not, so the same quote reaches every island while the observed days do not.

One rail, nine lists

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank issues the currency for eight territories, six of them independent states and two United Kingdom overseas territories. It set the clearing house up together with the union's licensed commercial banks, so a payment moving between islands runs on one shared piece of infrastructure.

The calendar did not follow the infrastructure. The union-wide list runs to seven entries in 2026, beginning with Thursday January 1st New Year's Day and ending with Monday December 28th Boxing Day. Everything after that is published per territory.

Forty-seven entries across the eight, on 37 distinct dates.

The dates that are shared without being union-wide

The interesting cases are not the ones belonging to a single island. They are the dates several territories observe that the union list does not carry, because those are the ones a sender is most likely to assume are either everywhere or nowhere.

Monday August 3rd is the widest. Five of the eight observe it, under three different names: August Monday in Anguilla and Dominica, Carnival Monday in Antigua and Barbuda, and Emancipation Day in Montserrat and St Kitts and Nevis. It is not on the union list.

Saturday August 1st is Emancipation Day in Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Two days later the other five all close as well, though only Montserrat and St Kitts and Nevis give their entry the same name.

Tuesday August 4th is the day after, and it is shared too, by Antigua and Barbuda as Carnival Tuesday and by St Kitts and Nevis as Culturama. So the first four days of August carry three separate multi-territory closures between them.

Thursday June 4th is Corpus Christi in Grenada and Saint Lucia. Monday June 22nd is the King's Birthday in Anguilla and Montserrat, which are the union's two United Kingdom overseas territories and share it with nobody else.

Six dates in all are observed by more than one territory without being union-wide:

At the other end, St Kitts and Nevis lists Carnival Day on Thursday January 1st, which is the union's own New Year's Day, and Carnival Day again on Friday January 2nd, which Saint Lucia also keeps as its New Year's Holiday.

Sundays move and Saturdays do not

The lists handle the two weekend days differently, and they do it consistently enough to be worth stating as a rule of the table rather than an observation about any one entry.

Four 2026 territorial entries fall on a Sunday, and every one carries an explicit note that it is celebrated on the Monday following: Antigua and Barbuda's Independence on November 1st, Saint Lucia's Independence Day on February 22nd and its National Day on December 13th, and Grenada's Thanksgiving on October 25th.

Six fall on a Saturday, and not one of them carries a note of that kind.

So a Sunday entry reliably reappears as a Monday the table names, and a Saturday entry does not reappear at all.

The participant lists are not a count of banks

The clearing house also names its participating institutions territory by territory. Those lists are worth reading with care rather than counting, for two reasons visible on the page.

Institutions recur across territories under regional names, so adding the lists together counts one banking group more than once. And the St Kitts and Nevis list includes the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and the clearing house itself, both headquartered there, so being named as a participant is a statement about the settlement arrangements rather than about where anybody keeps an account.

What varies across the union, and what does not

The rate does not vary between islands, because the currency does not. The Australian dollar to East Caribbean dollar page carries the union-wide reference figures, and the conversion page covers the pair.

The calendar does vary, and it varies in a way that is easy to get wrong in both directions. Assuming the union shares one calendar misses 47 entries. Assuming each island keeps its own alone misses that five of them close on August 3rd and three on August 1st. Seven dates are common ground, and after that the question is which of the eight territories the recipient banks in.

Where to look next

How international transfers work sets out the ordinary sequence a payment moves through before any calendar reaches it. What a payment rail is made of covers shared infrastructure of the kind this guide describes. For the live reference figures on this corridor, see the Australian dollar to East Caribbean dollar page, or the East Caribbean dollar to Australian dollar page for the same corridor inbound.

Sources

• Eastern Caribbean Automated Clearing House, country information - the nine 2026 public-holiday lists in full, one for the currency union and one for each territory, and the participating institutions named territory by territory.
• Eastern Caribbean Automated Clearing House, about - the clearing house's own account of its establishment and its membership.
• Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, payment and settlement operations - the central bank's description of the clearing arrangements set up with the union's commercial banks.
• Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, about the ECCB - the membership of the currency union, including its two United Kingdom overseas territories.

General information about sending money to the Eastern Caribbean and about the holiday calendars published for that currency union. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. How this site sources and dates what it publishes is set out on our methodology page. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.