Norway public holidays 2026

2026 at a glance

• Constitution Day falls on Sunday 17 May and is not moved; Second Day of Christmas falls on Saturday 26 December and is not moved, because Norway has no statutory substitute days.
• In 2026, public holidays fall on 8 weekdays in Norway, one fewer than in 2025.

Norway 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.

Public holidays in 2026

12 dates are counted as non-working in Norway 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 19 working days in April, 4 holidays
• May 18 working days in May, 5 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 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 Norway

Norway's national list is easy to get wrong, because two of its days are set by other rules than the main holiday act. The Holidays and Holy Day Peace Act of 1995 (helligdagsfredloven, no. 12) states in section 2 which days are holidays: Sundays, 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. Two further days come from a separate act of 26 April 1947: 1 May (Labour Day) and 17 May (Constitution Day) are high days (høgtidsdager) that rank with Sundays, except for the rules on church ceremonies and on holy-day peace. Counting those, the site has twelve holidays in a normal year.

The word helligdag matters here. Section 3 of the act sets the peace that applies on each of those days, and section 5 requires shops that sell to consumers to stay closed. Neither act says anything about holidays that coincide with a Sunday or any other day, which is why Norwegian holidays are never transferred. Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday are always Sundays. In 2026, 17 May is a Sunday and the Second Day of Christmas a Saturday; in 2027, 1 May is a Saturday, Christmas Day a Saturday and the Second Day of Christmas a Sunday. In none of those cases does the next weekday become a day off.

One coincidence is worth knowing about. In 2027, 17 May is a Monday and so is Whit Monday, so the two holidays share a single date. The table shows both names against that day, the year has eleven distinct non-working dates rather than twelve, and nobody gets an extra day in return. In 2026 they fall on different days: Constitution Day on Sunday 17 May and Whit Monday on 25 May.

Norway does not treat any of the following as a public holiday, and they are not subtracted: Easter Saturday, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Midsummer Eve (Sankthansaften) and the days between holidays and weekends. Many employers and some collective agreements let staff finish early or take the whole day on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, but the arrangement varies by workplace. A person whose workplace closes on both has two fewer working days than the totals here.

Most of the calendar moves with Easter and needs no yearly decision. In 2026 Maundy Thursday is 2 April, Good Friday 3 April, Easter Monday 6 April, Ascension Day 14 May and Whit Monday 25 May. In 2027 they are 25 March, 26 March, 29 March, 6 May and 17 May.

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://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1995-02-24-12
• https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1947-04-26-1

How the counts are made