Methodology · Sources · 10 May 2020 – 30 December 2028 · 17 Ramadan 1441 – 14 Sha'ban 1450 AH
Calendar
Every Gregorian date on the site carries its Hijri date, and every week knows whether it holds Ramadan, an Eid or a payday. That keeps comparisons between two years fair as the Hijri seasons move about 11 days each year.
451weeks in the calendar
12salary dates from the Ministry schedule
24estimated salary dates
6date sources
What we take
- Hijri date: from the Umm al-Qura calendar tables through an open conversion library, not converted by hand.
- Ramadan and the two Eids: their days in each week from the Umm al-Qura calendar; the actual date depends on the moon sighting.
- Government salaries: from the Ministry of Finance published schedule for 2026, and after it the announced payment rule (the 27th; Friday moves to the Thursday before, Saturday to the Sunday after), labelled “estimated”.
- Holidays and occasions: from the Ministry of Education school calendar and official announcements, each event with its source and publication date on the calendar page.
- Official data release dates: “official date” from Saudi Arabia’s official advance release calendar on the IMF Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (Saudi Arabia has subscribed to the SDDS since 2019), covering the next three months and fetched every night; what it does not cover is “estimated” from the pattern of recent GASTAT releases as our collector saw them.
- Major events (sport, exhibitions, culture): from the organiser or official body with the date we checked, in one file, site/events.json; an event without an announced date is “expected date”.
Coverage
| Data | Period |
|---|---|
| Week calendar (Sunday – Saturday) | 10 May 2020 (17 Ramadan 1441 AH) – 30 December 2028 (14 Sha'ban 1450 AH) |
| Events on the calendar page | The next 12 months and the past 12 months from build day |
Updates: at source and on our side
- The calendar is computed at every build. When the Ministry of Finance publishes a new schedule its dates are added and the word “estimated” drops.
- School holidays may change by Ministry decision; we update them when published.
- If the official advance calendar cannot be fetched for 14 days, all release dates fall back to “estimated” automatically, and a pre-publication check blocks any “official date” not in the official calendar.
Limits
- Future Ramadan and Eid dates are approximate until officially announced.
- The effect of an occasion on spending describes what happened; it does not isolate the occasion from other factors. See What we calculate.
- For a short event we show hotel occupancy for the whole month of its last edition, not the effect of the event itself.
Sources of the dates
- Ministry of Education
- Umm al-Qura calendar
- Ministry of Finance
- Asharq Al-Awsat
- Saudi Press Agency (SPA)
- Saudi Arabia’s official advance release calendar (IMF Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board)