Undas in the Philippines: Is November 1 a Holiday, How Bad Is the Traffic, and How Should Companies Schedule?

What is Undas in the Philippines?

Undas is the everyday Filipino word for the period of visiting and honouring the dead, concentrated from the night of October 31 through November 2, with the whole family travelling back to the home province to clean and decorate family graves. The word is generally traced to the Spanish honras, meaning honours or tribute.

You will see the same occasion called several different things, which matters when you are reading a government advisory or a leave request:

• Undas - the ordinary spoken term covering the whole period.
• Araw ng mga Patay - literally Day of the Dead, the most common Filipino phrase.
• Todos los Santos - the Spanish term for All Saints, still used by older Filipinos and in church notices.
• Kalag-kalag - the Visayan term you will hear in Cebu and Bohol.
• All Saints Day / All Souls Day - the English official terms for November 1 and November 2 respectively.

Liturgically, November 1 honours all saints and November 2 commemorates the ordinary departed. In practice the two have merged completely. Most families go on November 1, many arrive the evening before, and it is normal to spend the night at the grave with folding chairs, mats, coolers, card games and a bluetooth speaker. If you are picturing a solemn occasion, adjust: Undas reads far more like a family reunion than a funeral. For the wider pattern of Filipino festivals, see Filipino festivals and folk customs explained.

Is November 1 a holiday in the Philippines? What about November 2?

November 1 (All Saints Day) is normally listed as a special non-working day - a real day off, but not the top holiday tier. November 2 (All Souls Day) is not guaranteed; in many years it is added by a separate proclamation, in others it is left as a regular or special working day. Always check the proclamation for the year in question.

Three categories drive everything about pay and scheduling:

• Regular holiday - the highest tier (New Year, Independence Day, Christmas Day and so on). All Saints Day is not in this tier.
• Special non-working day - where November 1 usually sits. The default principle is no work, no pay unless a company policy or collective agreement is more favourable; employees who do work are paid at a premium rate.
• Special working day - an ordinary paid workday with no premium. November 2 sometimes lands here, which is exactly how the annual confusion starts.

The structural point foreign employers keep missing: the Philippine holiday list is issued each year by the Office of the President as a proclamation, usually published the year before and occasionally amended afterwards. Any hard-coded calendar you inherited will eventually be wrong. Confirm the current year proclamation in September or October, then publish your November schedule. The full breakdown of holiday classes is in Philippine public holidays explained.

October 31 itself is generally not a holiday - but operationally it behaves like one, because that is the day the exodus starts.

Why do Filipinos visit cemeteries around Halloween?

Two separate things share the same weekend: a commercial Halloween on October 31, and the traditional Undas grave visit that follows immediately after. Halloween is for the kids and the malls; Undas is the one the whole family travels for.

The typical sequence looks like this:

• October 31, daytime - trick or treat in malls and gated villages, costume days at the office, horror-themed events. Purely commercial, no religious content.
• October 31, night into November 1 - families start arriving at cemeteries. Many stay overnight. The gear is domestic: mats, folding chairs, tarpaulin shades, food coolers, playing cards.
• November 1-2 - masses, candles, flowers (chrysanthemums are the standard), cleaning and repainting of tombs. In some rural areas the old pangangaluluwa tradition survives, where groups sing door to door on behalf of the souls in exchange for treats.

The most common expat misread is tone. This is not a mournful occasion. There are food vendors, karaoke, kids running between tombs. If a Filipino colleague or staff member invites you along, you do not need to wear black; bring food, greet the elders, and stay a while. Declining because it feels like a private family matter usually reads as distance rather than tact. For funeral and wake etiquette proper, see Filipino wakes, lamay and abuloy etiquette.

How bad is Undas traffic, and which days and routes are worst?

The worst windows are outbound on October 30-31 and inbound on November 2-3, when expressway toll plazas and provincial bus terminals back up for hours. November 1 itself is quiet on main city roads but total gridlock around every major cemetery. The pattern repeats almost every year.

Corridor by corridor:

• Expressways - NLEX and SCTEX heading north, SLEX and STAR heading south. The outbound surge begins late on October 29; the heaviest toll queues are typically from the early hours of October 30 through midday October 31. Return congestion peaks from the afternoon of November 2 into the night of November 3. Top up your RFID balance before you go - cash lanes move far slower. See Autosweep and Easytrip RFID guide.
• Provincial buses - Cubao, Pasay and PITX see overnight queues. Popular routes sell out weeks ahead even with augmented trips.
• Ports - Manila North Harbor, Batangas Pier and Cebu see passenger volumes spike. Book Visayas and Mindanao sailings early; see domestic ferry travel in the Philippines.
• Airports - domestic terminals run at peak load. Add a generous buffer to your usual arrival time.
• Cemetery perimeters - Manila North Cemetery, Manila South Cemetery, the Manila Chinese Cemetery, Manila Memorial Park in Sucat, Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina and Heritage Park in Taguig all get road closures, one-way rerouting and no-parking zones. Police and local government direct traffic on the spot, so navigation apps are frequently wrong.

Three practical rules. Shift your dates: travel before October 29 and return after November 4. Leave the car: for city cemeteries, take LRT or MRT and walk or take a short ride the rest of the way. Check the local orders: number coding is normally suspended on holidays, but local governments issue their own temporary traffic schemes - background in Metro Manila number coding rules and everyday patterns in Manila traffic peak hours.

Do companies have to close for Undas, and how is holiday pay computed?

You may close or stay open. If November 1 is a special non-working day and you ask staff to work, the day is paid at the special non-working day premium; if they do not work, the default is no work no pay unless your policy or collective agreement is more generous. Exact multipliers, including how they stack with overtime and night differential, follow the labour advisory issued by DOLE for that year.

What actually derails November has little to do with the holiday itself:

• Leave requests start on October 29. Staff whose families are in distant provinces face 10-plus hours on a bus each way; one day off does not cover it, so they attach vacation leave. Open a leave sign-up two weeks ahead with per-team caps instead of approving ad hoc. See statutory leave entitlements in the Philippines.
• Return-day attendance is soft. November 3 headcount routinely falls short. Do not put a delivery milestone on November 3 or 4.
• Overtime appetite is high. Because the premium rate is attractive, many employees will volunteer to cover. Run it as an opt-in roster - you fill the gaps and avoid arguments. See overtime pay rules in the Philippines.
• Class suspensions cascade into attendance. If a local government suspends classes for traffic or weather, parents will not make it in. See how Philippine class suspensions work.

One warning specifically for Chinese-invested companies: do not import the mainland practice of swapping a weekend into a workday to compensate for a holiday. That mechanism does not exist here and forcing it can run into working-hours and overtime rules. The correct pattern is a rotating roster plus voluntary, properly paid overtime. If you want the roster and the pay treatment reviewed before you publish it, our visa and HR team can sanity-check both.

What closes: banks, government offices, customs and couriers

Treat October 30 through November 3 as unavailable working days when you plan deadlines. Banks, government agencies, customs and most forwarders are closed or on skeleton staff, and anything caught in the middle slips by roughly a week.

• Banks - branches are closed on a special non-working day and batch clearing does not run, so value dates roll to the next banking day. Early November is already a payment-heavy period, so move payroll, supplier settlements and tax remittances forward.
• Government windows - Immigration, BIR, SSS, SEC and city hall business permit counters are all shut. The last working day before and the first working day after are the two most crowded days of the month. Never schedule a deadline-bound filing, such as a visa extension, inside this window.
• Customs and ports - release and examination slow down while storage and demurrage clocks keep running. Containers landing in late October should be cleared before the break.
• Couriers and last-mile - domestic couriers are overloaded before and after, and provincial deliveries are hit hardest by the exodus. See sending parcels in the Philippines.
• Buildings and industrial parks - outsourced security, cleaning and canteen crews also run short. Confirm skeleton coverage with building admin in advance if you need site access.

A simple planning rule: discount your first-week-of-November output, pull every compliance-critical action forward to on or before October 28, and push discretionary internal work to November 5 or later. This is the same playbook as Holy Week and the Christmas season - see surviving Holy Week shutdowns in the Philippines. If you would rather have someone track the filing calendar around these closures for you, that is part of our compliance retainer.

What is banned at Philippine cemeteries during Undas, and how do you stay safe?

Major cemeteries run bag inspections during Undas and commonly ban alcohol, bladed items, gambling paraphernalia and high-powered sound systems; some local governments also impose a temporary liquor ban in the surrounding area. The exact list is published each year by the cemetery and the local government, so read the notice at the gate.

• Alcohol - banned at essentially every large cemetery, often with a liquor sales ban nearby.
• Bladed items - including the innocuous fruit knife in your picnic bag.
• Gambling items - cards, mahjong tiles and dice are explicitly prohibited, whatever you may observe going on quietly.
• Loud sound systems - videoke rigs and large speakers are normally refused; a small bluetooth speaker at modest volume is usually tolerated.
• Pets - generally not allowed inside.

On safety: dense crowds plus a lot of cash in circulation means pickpocketing and snatching spike. Do not walk while looking at your phone, wear your bag in front, split your cash, and leave jewellery at home. See preventing phone snatching in the Philippines. If you are bringing children, agree on a meeting point before you enter - mobile networks inside large cemeteries are frequently congested to the point that calls will not connect.

Etiquette that will never be wrong: greet the elders of the family first, bring white or yellow chrysanthemums, accept and eat food that is offered, do not take tourist-style selfies at the tomb, and carry out whatever you carried in.

How Chinese-Filipino families observe it: Undas versus Qingming

Most Chinese-Filipino families do both: Qingming in April following Chinese tradition, and Undas again in November following the local calendar. They do not conflict. The Manila Chinese Cemetery is therefore busy on November 1 as well, though not to the scale of Qingming.

• Timing - Qingming follows the Chinese solar terms, Undas the Catholic calendar. Qingming visits tend to be smaller and more private; Undas draws the entire extended family.
• Ritual - the Chinese side keeps incense, joss paper and food offerings; the local tradition is candles, flowers and mass. Chinese-Filipino families commonly run both at once.
• The cemetery itself - the Manila Chinese Cemetery is known for elaborate family mausoleums, some with sitting rooms, bathrooms and air conditioning. See the Manila Chinese Cemetery.
• Supplies - the shops around Binondo expand their stalls before both occasions and can outfit a family visit in one stop. See the Binondo Chinese community.

One practical note for newly arrived Chinese families: if an elderly relative passes away in the Philippines, the burial, plot purchase, cremation and subsequent visiting arrangements differ considerably from the mainland process and involve funeral homes, the church and local civil registry steps. The sequence is set out in handling a death in the Philippines. Knowing it in advance is far better than learning it under pressure. Cultural checkpoints like this are part of what our settling-in service flags for clients ahead of time.