Tihar 2026 UAE: Laxmi Puja, Bhai Tika and Deusi-Bhailo for the Nepali Community
UAE's festival of lights falls in early November — the Nepal Tourism Board calendar places Tihar November 3–6. Here is what Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah Nepalis
By Nepalese Events Australia Editorial
Published: 2026-09-30T05:00:00.000000Z
Category: Festivals
Three weeks after the biggest tika of the year, the UAE's Nepali community marks its second festival. Tihar 2026 falls in early November — the Nepal Tourism Board's festival calendar places the Festival of Lights from November 3–6, with local calendars calculating individual observances by lunar tithi.
The five days in the UAE
The Nepali community across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah observes the standard five-day cycle: Kag Tihar (crows), Kukur Tihar (dogs), Laxmi Puja (the main evening — homes lit, businesses blessed), Govardhan Puja / Mha Puja and Bhai Tika, the sibling ceremony that closes the festival. In the UAE's dispersed labour-community geography, the pattern that has emerged mirrors other Gulf diasporas: the observances happen at home in the labour accommodations and family apartments, while the community events — Deusi-Bhailo groups, Laxmi Puja gatherings — run through the associations and the restaurants and halls the community uses in Deira, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi's Nepali quarters.
The Nepal Tourism Board's festival page is the reference for the multi-day schedule; for UAE-specific tithi timings, the Dubai calendar calculation is the local reference — the same used in our Dashain guide, which covered the October dates.
The unique UAE texture
There's a detail about Gulf diaspora Tihar worth noting: for a community where many members are workers on fixed schedules rather than settled families, Bhai Tika has acquired a particular function — it's the one observance that gets done over call with siblings at home, because the UAE's workweek doesn't pause for it. The country's large Nepali workforce also means the festival's "light in darkness" imagery lands differently in the labour-camp context — the community's own reporting over the years has documented the Tihar programmes that bring the observance into accommodations where it couldn't otherwise happen.
The season's wider calendar
Tihar this year sits at the tail of a busy autumn: the October concerts (Nepathya, Mukti & Revival), the cinema season (see our UAE movie guide), and the ongoing flood-relief response covered in our consulate ceremony report. For remittances home during the festival season, the AED–NPR page shows the live rate — and the time difference explains why your Dubai Bhai Tika evening is Kathmandu's night. Follow the UAE desk for every announced celebration as November approaches.
Timing in the UAE week
One practical advantage the UAE community has over Western diasporas: the Gulf weekend (Saturday–Sunday) and the early-November dates mean Bhai Tika's midweek observance still gets evening hours free of work for most shift patterns, and the nearest weekend catches the community-hall programmes. The November dates also land after the October concert and cinema season winds down — the festival owns the community calendar rather than sharing it, which tends to push association events toward the Tihar weekend proper rather than early placeholders.
For families coordinating across the Gulf–Nepal split, the UAE's milder autumn also changes the festival's feel: November in Dubai is outdoor-weather season, so the community versions of Tihar — the dinners, the Deusi-Bhailo performances, the association gatherings — can actually use outdoor space in a way Nepal's own winter Tihar can't. It's a small thing, but it's part of why the UAE's festival events keep growing in scale.
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