Denmark public holidays 2026

2026 at a glance

• Second Day of Christmas falls on Saturday 26 December and is not moved, because Denmark has no statutory substitute days.
• In 2026, public holidays fall on 7 weekdays in Denmark, one fewer than in 2025.

Denmark 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. Workers' Day (1 May), Constitution Day (5 June), Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are not public holidays, but many employers give them off; they are listed but not counted.

Public holidays in 2026

10 dates are counted as non-working in Denmark in 2026; 7 of them fall on a weekday.

• not counted some employers only

Also observed by some

4 more days are holidays only for some employers, sectors or areas in 2026. They are not counted as non-working days here.

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 19 working days in April, 4 holidays
• May 19 working days in May, 3 holidays
• Jun 22 working days in June
• Jul 23 working days in July
• Aug 21 working days in August
• Sep 22 working days in September
• Oct 22 working days in October
• Nov 21 working days in November
• Dec 22 working days in December, 2 holidays

Long weekends in 2026

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

• 5 days Thursday 2 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 Denmark

Denmark counts ten public holidays a year on this site. They are New Year's Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, Whit Monday, Christmas Day and the Second Day of Christmas (26 December). Apart from 1 January and the two Christmas days, every one of them moves with Easter, so the list is a calendar of church feasts rather than of national anniversaries.

The most recent change to the list came with the Act on the consequences of abolishing Great Prayer Day (Store Bededag) as a holiday, Act no. 214 of 6 March 2023. From 1 January 2024 the fourth Friday after Easter is an ordinary working day, and employees no longer have a right to the day off or to holiday pay for it. Some calendars still print the day, and older working-day tables show it as a holiday; this site does not count it in any year.

No Danish statute gives every employee a paid day off on each holiday. The Holy Days Act (helligdagsloven) only protects church services on the holidays of the national church, and the list itself appears in the shop-closing act: since the 2023 act it names the ten days above as holidays, and mentions Constitution Day and Christmas Eve separately, as days with their own closing rules. The entitlement to time off usually comes from collective agreements and individual contracts, which refer to the same holidays. The ten days are the ones counted here.

Four other days are widely observed but are not public holidays: 1 May (Workers' Day), 5 June (Constitution Day), Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. Many employers, and some collective agreements, give all or part of these days off, but the right depends on the workplace. They appear in the separate list of days observed by some, and they are not subtracted from working days. If your employer closes on all four, a year has up to four working days fewer than the figures here show.

Danish holidays are never moved. Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday always fall on a Sunday, so they never cost anyone a weekday. When Christmas Day or the Second Day of Christmas falls on a weekend there is no substitute on the Monday or Friday. In 2026 the Second Day of Christmas is a Saturday. In 2027 Christmas Day is a Saturday and the Second Day of Christmas a Sunday, so only New Year's Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day and Whit Monday take weekdays that year.

The dates follow the Easter calendar and need no yearly announcement. In 2026 Maundy Thursday is 2 April, Good Friday 3 April and Easter Monday 6 April, Ascension Day is 14 May and Whit Monday 25 May. In 2027 the same days are 25 March, 26 March, 29 March, 6 May and 17 May. The 2023 act does not apply to the Faroe Islands or Greenland, which are not covered here.

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.retsinformation.dk/eli/lta/2023/214
• https://www.retsinformation.dk/eli/lta/2012/1023

How the counts are made