North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany public holidays 2026

2026 at a glance

• German Unity Day falls on Saturday 3 October and is not moved; All Saints' Day falls on Sunday 1 November and is not moved; Second Day of Christmas falls on Saturday 26 December and is not moved, because Germany has no statutory substitute days.
• In 2026, public holidays fall on 8 weekdays in North Rhine-Westphalia, two fewer than in 2025.

Germany has no statutory substitute days: a public holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is not moved to a weekday, so the following Monday stays a working day in these counts. Each German state sets its own public holidays on top of the nine that apply everywhere.

Public holidays in 2026

11 dates are counted as non-working in North Rhine-Westphalia 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 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 18 working days in May, 3 holidays
• Jun 21 working days in June, 1 holiday
• Jul 23 working days in July
• Aug 21 working days in August
• Sep 22 working days in September
• Oct 22 working days in October, 1 holiday
• Nov 21 working days in November, 1 holiday
• Dec 22 working days in December, 2 holidays

Compare with the rest of Germany

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 Friday 1 May 2026 to Sunday 3 May 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 North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany's most populous state, and its holiday list reflects a mixed Catholic and Protestant history. Its law on Sundays and public holidays gives eleven days: the nine found everywhere in Germany, plus Corpus Christi, which falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and All Saints' Day on 1 November. Both extra days are statewide, with no municipal conditions, so the rule applies equally in Cologne, Münster and the largely Protestant parts of Westphalia.

What the state does not have matters just as much. Reformation Day on 31 October is not a holiday, so a Düsseldorf worker has no day off on the day that colleagues in Lower Saxony, to the north-east, now do. Epiphany on 6 January is also absent, which separates North Rhine-Westphalia from Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The Assumption on 15 August is not a state holiday either, although Saarland keeps it.

Among its southern neighbours the state sits in the middle. Rhineland-Palatinate has exactly the same list. Hesse has Corpus Christi but not All Saints' Day. Lower Saxony has Reformation Day but neither Catholic day. For a company with offices in several of these states, the practical effect is that the total of paid days off differs by one or two a year even though most of the calendar is common.

In 2027 the movable days are 26 March for Good Friday, 29 March for Easter Monday, 6 May for Ascension Day, 17 May for Whit Monday and 27 May for Corpus Christi. All Saints' Day falls on a Monday that year, which makes a three-day weekend without any extra leave.

German law does not move a holiday that lands on a Saturday or Sunday. All Saints' Day on a Sunday in 2026 is simply lost, with no compensation, and the following Monday stays a working day in the counts on this site.

Carnival needs a note. Rose Monday, the Monday before Ash Wednesday, is not a public holiday, yet in Cologne, Düsseldorf and many other Rhineland towns employers, schools and public offices close for it by custom or agreement. Because it is not in the state law, this site does not count it. Neither are local fair days or Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, which are working days in law. Employees whose contract or collective agreement grants any of these should adjust the figures accordingly.

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://recht.nrw.de/lrgv/gesetz/01012000-bekanntmachung-der-neufassung-des-gesetzes-ueber-die-sonn-und-feiertage/
• https://www.landesrecht.rlp.de/bsrp/document/jlr-NNLRP00006125
• https://www.rv.hessenrecht.hessen.de/bshe/document/jlr-NNLHE000051B5NN00000000002
• https://www.mi.niedersachsen.de/startseite/themen/allgemeine_angelegenheiten_des_inneren/feiertagsrecht/feiertagsgesetz-61491.html

How the counts are made