Fix iPhone Holiday Calendar for Your Country Without Changing Language

If you’re using an iPhone set to English but living outside the US, you’ve probably noticed US holidays cluttering your Calendar app. This happens because iOS ties holiday calendars directly to your region setting — not your language preference.

Why US Holidays Appear by Default

The Calendar app automatically subscribes to holidays based on your device’s region setting in Settings > General > Language & Region. If your region is set to “United States,” that’s what you’ll see in your holiday calendar, regardless of where you actually live or what language you’re using.

The key point: iOS treats language and region as separate settings. You can keep English as your UI language while changing your region to match your actual location.

How to Change Your Holiday Calendar

Step 1: Open Language & Region settings

Go to Settings > General > Language & Region. Note your current region — it’s probably set to “United States.”

Step 2: Select your local region

Tap “Region” and search for your country. iOS supports hundreds of regions including Australia, Canada, India, Germany, France, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico, and most others. Each has its own holiday calendar.

Step 3: Refresh the Calendar app

Switch to Calendar and pull down on the calendar list to force a refresh. Within a few seconds, your holiday calendar will update. You’ll now see your local equivalent — “CA Holidays” instead of “US Holidays,” “AU Holidays,” “DE Holidays,” etc.

The Trade-off: Date and Time Formatting

Changing your region also changes system-wide date and time formats. If you select Australia, your dates flip from MM/DD/YYYY to DD/MM/YYYY, and time shifts to 24-hour format. This applies everywhere on your device — Calendar, Mail, Messages, Clock, and all other apps.

If this formatting change breaks your workflow, you have three workarounds:

Option 1: Manually manage the US holiday calendar

Keep your region as United States, then delete just the US holiday calendar. Go to Settings > Calendar > Subscribed Calendars, swipe left on “US Holidays,” and tap Delete. This removes the calendar without affecting other settings. The downside: you lose automatic holiday updates and must manually add important dates.

Option 2: Use a third-party calendar app

Google Calendar, Fantastical, or Microsoft Outlook let you subscribe to any country’s holidays independently of your system region setting. You can keep your region as United States while adding your local holidays through the app. This is the most flexible solution if you regularly need multiple regions’ holidays visible.

Option 3: Create a custom calendar

Go to Calendar > Calendars > Edit and tap the plus button to create a new local calendar. Manually add your country’s important dates. This gives you full control but requires ongoing maintenance.

Verify and Troubleshoot

Open Calendar and tap the Calendars button. Scroll to “Subscribed Calendars” to see which holiday calendar is active. You can toggle any holiday calendar on or off here.

If you’ve changed regions but the holiday calendar hasn’t updated, restart your iPhone. iOS sometimes caches calendar data and needs a restart to reflect region changes. If that doesn’t work, check that you’re running the latest iOS version — go to Settings > General > Software Update.

You can also verify your current region by returning to Settings > General > Language & Region and confirming the “Region” field shows your selected country.