Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland public holidays 2026

2026 at a glance

• National Day falls on Saturday 1 August and is not moved, because Switzerland has no statutory substitute days.
• In 2026, public holidays fall on 6 weekdays in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, two fewer than in 2025.

Switzerland has no statutory substitute days: a holiday on a Saturday or Sunday is not moved to a weekday. In Appenzell Ausserrhoden St Stephen's Day is a holiday except when Christmas falls on a Monday or a Friday. These counts include 1 August and the cantonal days that the law makes equal to a Sunday in the whole canton.

Public holidays in 2026

7 dates are counted as non-working in Appenzell Ausserrhoden in 2026; 6 of them fall on a weekday.

Working days and hours by month

Working days are Monday to Friday minus the counted holidays. Hours are shown for a 7.5-hour and an 8-hour working day.

• Jan 21 working days in January, 1 holiday
• Feb 20 working days in February
• Mar 22 working days in March
• Apr 20 working days in April, 2 holidays
• May 19 working days in May, 2 holidays
• Jun 22 working days in June
• Jul 23 working days in July
• Aug 21 working days in August, 1 holiday
• Sep 22 working days in September
• Oct 22 working days in October
• Nov 21 working days in November
• Dec 22 working days in December, 1 holiday

Compare with the rest of Switzerland

Long weekends in 2026

Runs of three or more days off in a row without taking leave.

• 4 days Friday 3 April 2026 to Monday 6 April 2026
• 3 days Saturday 23 May 2026 to Monday 25 May 2026
• 3 days Friday 25 December 2026 to Sunday 27 December 2026

Best days to take leave in 2026

The longest single break for each number of leave days, built around a public holiday.

Leave plans for the whole year

Non-overlapping breaks that give the most days off for a given number of leave days.

Try any budget from 1 to 30 days in the leave planner

Countdown

The days to the next holiday appear here when JavaScript is on.

The working days left this month and this year appear here when JavaScript is on.

Count working days between two dates

Calendar and data downloads

The subscription works in Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar. The CSV file also lists the days observed by some.

About public holidays in Appenzell Ausserrhoden

Appenzell Ausserrhoden, the Reformed half of the historically divided canton of Appenzell, keeps a compact holiday list. The SECO annex to the Labour Act gives the days that the canton has equated with a Sunday: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Christmas Day and, under a condition, St Stephen's Day on 26 December. The federal holiday on 1 August comes on top, so a normal year has seven or eight such days.

The condition on 26 December is what makes this canton unusual. According to the annex, St Stephen's Day is not celebrated when Christmas Day falls on a Monday or a Friday. In those years the second day of Christmas is an ordinary working day, and the number of holidays drops by one. In every other year it is a holiday. Because the trigger is the weekday of Christmas and not an annual decision, the effect can be calculated years ahead, but the calendar here still treats dates beyond the years we have checked against official sources as provisional.

The two years on this site show both sides. Christmas Day 2026 is a Friday, so 26 December 2026 stays out of the count and the year has seven counted days and 255 working days. In 2027 Christmas is a Saturday, 26 December is a Sunday and the day is counted, which gives eight dates but 256 working days, because 1 August, Christmas Day and 26 December all sit on a weekend.

Seen from its neighbours, Ausserrhoden looks sparse. Appenzell Innerrhoden, a few kilometres away, adds Corpus Christi and attaches a different condition to the same 26 December. Catholic cantons such as Lucerne or Uri keep Marian feasts and All Saints, which are absent here. Ausserrhoden also has no 2 January and no 1 May, so, unlike Basel, it has no labour holiday in spring.

The days above are the whole list, and every one of them is counted; this page has no second list of days that are only named without being treated as Sundays. Village festivals, church feasts without legal status and other customs are left out because the canton has not given them that standing. If a counted holiday falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, nothing replaces it. Pay on a holiday is a matter for the employment contract: SECO notes that federal law contains no general obligation to pay for days lost to a holiday.

Source and last check

Dates are calculated with the python-holidays library 0.108 and checked against the official sources below. Last checked: 15 November 2026.

Sources

• https://www.seco.admin.ch/dam/de/sd-web/x5LtHPJdNis5/Anhang-Feiertage-Schweiz-Auszug-ArG-ArGV1-5-SECO-SB-2024-DE.pdf

How the counts are made