Dry spells represent an important dimension of rainfall variability because rainfall accumulation alone may not adequately capture the temporal distribution of rainfall and its associated impacts. This study characterizes and regionalizes dry spells across Java, Indonesia, using relative frequency (RF) and fractional contribution to total duration (FCTD). Daily rainfall data from 771 BMKG stations across Java for 2010–2019 were analyzed to characterize dry-spell duration. RF and FCTD were calculated for different dry-spell durations. Principal component analysis (PCA) and K-means clustering were subsequently applied to regionalize dry-spell characteristics. Short-duration dry spells (≤10 days) exhibited the highest RF throughout Java, whereas FCTD revealed pronounced spatial variability. Western Java was characterized by a greater contribution from short-duration dry spells, while eastern Java showed a greater contribution from long-duration dry spells (>10 days). A distinct north–south gradient was also identified, reflecting the influence of local topography, with long-duration dry spells contributing more substantially in northern regions. Dry-spell characteristics closely corresponded to the spatial distribution of mean annual rainfall, with wetter regions dominated by short-duration dry spells and drier regions by long-duration dry spells. Mean annual rainfall showed a moderately strong positive correlation with the FCTD of short-duration dry spells (Pearson’s r = 0.657). Regionalization identified four clusters representing distinct dry-spell regimes across Java. The findings demonstrate that combining RF, FCTD, and multivariate clustering provides a physically meaningful framework for characterizing the spatial variability of dry spells across Java, capturing both the west–east rainfall contrast and the north–south topographic gradient.