Germany Public Holidays by State: Federal Rules vs the Lander

A payroll team in Frankfurt books a project review for the last Thursday of May. The Hamburg colleagues accept; the Munich team declines, because the date is Corpus Christi and their office is closed. Nobody made a mistake. Germany simply does not have a single national holiday calendar in the way many people assume it does.

Public holidays in Germany are, with one exception, a matter for the 16 federal states (the Länder). Each state passes its own holiday law, and those laws differ in ways that matter for scheduling, shift planning and payroll.

The one federal holiday

The only public holiday fixed by federal law is German Unity Day on 3 October, marking reunification in 1990. Everything else, including Christmas and Easter Monday, is technically a state holiday. In practice the states agree on a common core, so most people never notice the distinction until they work across state borders.

The common core: nine days everywhere

Every state currently recognises these nine days:

• New Year's Day (1 January)
• Good Friday
• Easter Monday
• Labour Day (1 May)
• Ascension Day (39 days after Easter Sunday, always a Thursday)
• Whit Monday
• German Unity Day (3 October)
• Christmas Day (25 December)
• Second Day of Christmas (26 December)

Four of these move every year because they hang off Easter, which is calculated from the first full moon after the March equinox. That is why Ascension can land anywhere from late April to early June.

The days that vary by state

On top of the core, states add their own days. The pattern broadly follows religious history: predominantly Catholic regions in the south and west keep more Catholic feast days, while the historically Protestant east and north keep Reformation Day.

Some of these are recent. The four northern states added Reformation Day as a permanent holiday in 2018, Berlin added Women's Day in 2019, Thuringia added World Children's Day the same year and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern added Women's Day in 2023. States do change their laws, and Berlin has also declared occasional one-off holidays for anniversaries, so a list that was right five years ago may not be right now.

Local exceptions inside a state

Two cases trip people up. In Bavaria, Assumption Day depends on the religious make-up of each municipality, so neighbouring towns can differ. The city of Augsburg also has its own holiday, the Augsburg Peace Festival on 8 August, which applies only within the city. For Corpus Christi in Saxony and Thuringia, only certain municipalities are covered. If you employ people in these areas, check the municipality, not just the state.

Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday

Brandenburg lists Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday as public holidays in their own right. Since they fall on Sundays anyway, this mostly matters for Sunday-working sectors such as hospitality, healthcare and shift-based operations, where holiday premiums may apply. Check your collective agreement or contract.

No substitute days

German holidays that fall on a weekend are not moved to a weekday. If Christmas Day lands on a Saturday, the day is simply lost for anyone on a Monday-to-Friday pattern. This makes the number of working days in a German year swing more than in countries such as the UK, where substitute days are standard.

Worked example: May 2027 in Munich and Hamburg

Suppose you run a team with members in Munich (Bavaria) and Hamburg, and you need the number of working days in May 2027 for a capacity plan. Easter Sunday 2027 is 28 March, which gives:

• Labour Day: Saturday 1 May (falls on a weekend, no effect)
• Ascension Day: Thursday 6 May
• Whit Monday: Monday 17 May
• Corpus Christi: Thursday 27 May

May 2027 has 31 days, of which 21 are weekdays (Monday to Friday).

One day's difference sounds small, but over a ten-person team that is ten person-days of capacity in one month. It also means Munich staff get two Thursdays that invite a bridge day on the Friday, which in practice reduces availability further.

Now try November 2026. It has 21 weekdays. All Saints' Day falls on Sunday 1 November, so Bavaria loses nothing. Saxony, however, has the Day of Repentance and Prayer on Wednesday 18 November, giving 20 working days there against 21 in Bavaria and Hamburg. The state with the most holidays over the year is not always the one with the fewest working days in a given month.

How many holidays does each state have?

Counting the days that can fall on a weekday, the totals range from ten in states such as Berlin and Hamburg to thirteen in Bavarian municipalities that observe Assumption Day, with Augsburg one higher again. These counts are of statutory days only. They do not include Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, which are not public holidays anywhere in Germany, although many employers give the afternoon or the whole day off by contract or collective agreement.

What this means for planning

The practical rule is to attach every German employee to a state, and in Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia ideally to a municipality. Company headquarters location is irrelevant; what counts is where the employee works. For remote staff, check your contract and local rules, as the place of work is usually the deciding factor.

Checklist for multi-state teams

• Record the state for each employee in your HR system, not just "Germany".
• Pull the state-level calendar from the Germany public holidays rather than a single national list.
• For deadlines that span states, count with the business days calculator using the stricter calendar.
• Flag the Thursday holidays (Ascension, Corpus Christi) early; bridge-day requests cluster around them. The 2027 long weekends in Germany list shows where they fall.
• Re-check state laws each year. Additions in 2018, 2019 and 2023 show the list is not frozen.