Vaud, 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 8 weekdays in Vaud, one fewer than in 2025.

Switzerland has no statutory substitute days: a public holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is not moved to a weekday. Only 1 August is a federal holiday; each canton's law makes some other days equal to a Sunday, and these counts include exactly those. Further cantonal rest days, days kept only in some areas and days that many employers give off by custom are listed but not counted.

Public holidays in 2026

9 dates are counted as non-working in Vaud in 2026; 8 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 20 working days in January, 2 holidays
• 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 21 working days in September, 1 holiday
• 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 Thursday 1 January 2026 to Sunday 4 January 2026
• 4 days Friday 3 April 2026 to Monday 6 April 2026
• 3 days Saturday 23 May 2026 to Monday 25 May 2026
• 3 days Saturday 19 September 2026 to Monday 21 September 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 Vaud

Vaud is a French-speaking, historically Protestant canton, and its calendar shows it. The holidays published on the canton's official holiday and school-calendar pages are Sundays, 1 and 2 January, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, 1 August, the Lundi du Jeûne and Christmas Day. That gives nine days a year besides Sundays, and this page counts them. The reference for treating them as Sunday-equivalent days is the SECO table of Swiss holidays, in its state of December 2024.

The Lundi du Jeûne is what makes Vaud distinctive. It is the Monday after the Federal Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance and Prayer, which is the third Sunday in September. In 2026 it falls on Monday 21 September and in 2027 on Monday 20 September. Zurich and St Gallen mark the Sunday only, so the Monday does not exist there.

There is a second, smaller rule. The canton's page says that the cantonal administration receives one extra day off beyond the list, set in principle at 26 December and movable by the personnel service. That is a benefit of state employees and not a day that the canton equates with a Sunday, so 26 December is not counted here, whereas in Zurich and Ticino St Stephen's Day is. A private employer in Vaud is under no duty to close on that date.

Eight of the nine counted dates take a weekday away in 2026, which leaves 253 working days. In 2027 only six do, because 2 January and Christmas Day are Saturdays, and the total is 255.

Vaud has no Catholic feast days on its list. Corpus Christi, the Assumption, All Saints' Day, the Immaculate Conception, Epiphany and St Joseph are absent. Next door, Valais keeps all of those except Epiphany, and Fribourg keeps four of them only in its predominantly Catholic communes. The second day of January is a holiday in Vaud, as it is in Thurgau and Bern, but not in St Gallen.

Vaud has no rule for moving a holiday that lands on a weekend. In 2026 the federal holiday is a Saturday, and so is the day after Christmas; in 2027 Christmas Day and 2 January are both Saturdays. None of these days is replaced by a weekday in the working-day count.

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.vd.ch/formation/jours-feries-et-vacances-scolaires/jours-feries-et-vacances-scolaires-2026
• https://www.vd.ch/formation/jours-feries-et-vacances-scolaires/jours-feries-et-vacances-scolaires-2027
• 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