TASMAC dry days 2026: the complete list
Eight days in 2026, not four. Four of them repeat every year and you can plan around them; the rest were declared — a memorial day, a religious observance, and four days of election silence. Here is the whole calendar, and the one our own data noticed before we did.
The whole of 2026
| Date | Occasion | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 16 January | Thiruvalluvar Day | Declared · statewide |
| 26 January | Republic Day | Every year |
| 1 February | Vallalar Memorial Day | Declared · statewide |
| 21–23 April | Assembly election — polling on 23 April | Election |
| 4 May | Counting day | Election |
| 26 August | Eid Milad | Declared · statewide |
| 2 October | Gandhi Jayanti | Every year |
A dry day is a full midnight-to-midnight closure — not shortened hours. TASMAC outlets, bars, clubs and every licensed establishment stay shut.
The four you can plan around
Strip out what was specific to 2026 and four dates remain, fixed and statewide, year after year:
Which is why the honest answer to "how many dry days are there" is at least four, usually more. An election year is the expensive one: 2026 lost four days to the poll alone.
Election dry days are the ones that catch people out
The Election Commission bans liquor sales for roughly the 48 hours before polling closes, plus counting day. In 2026 that meant shops shut on 21, 22 and 23 April for the Assembly poll, and again on 4 May when the votes were counted.
Two things make these harder to plan for than the fixed dates. They are announced rather than scheduled, so there is no calendar to check a year ahead. And they can be district-specific — shops shut where the polling is happening while the rest of the state trades normally. If there is a by-election in your district, that is a dry day for you and nobody else.
The one we noticed before anyone told us
We count stock movement across every TASMAC shop in Tamil Nadu, several times a day. That produces an odd side-effect: a dry day is visible in the data as an absolute flatline — not a quiet day, a zero. Nothing moves anywhere in 38 districts.
On 26 August 2026 our counts went to zero statewide and the system flagged a closure automatically, with no notice, no announcement and nothing in our calendar. It was Eid Milad. We had recorded it as an unexplained statewide shutdown a full day before we understood what it was.
That is the useful property of measuring the whole state at once: a dry day cannot hide. Whether or not it reached a calendar, the shelves stop moving, everywhere, at the same moment.
What happens the day after
Demand does not disappear on a dry day — it is deferred. Across our data the day after a statewide closure runs well above a normal day: 15 August produced the single largest trading day we have measured, and 27 August ran clearly above baseline after the 26th.
Two practical consequences. If you plan to drink on a dry day, buy the day before, not the morning of — and expect company, because the day before also runs hot. If you are shopping the day after, go early: the surge lands in the first session back and the popular lines clear first. Stock depth is worth checking on both days, which is what the app is for.
On every other day of the year the answer is the ordinary one: 12 noon to 10 pm, in every district.
Four dates are certain. The rest arrive by announcement — and the shelves know before the calendars do.