Spain Public Holidays: National, Regional and Local Days Explained
Spain caps paid public holidays at fourteen a year, but which fourteen depends on your region and your town. Here is how the three layers fit together.
A logistics company with warehouses in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville publishes one Spanish holiday list for the year. By March it has already been wrong twice. Seville closed for Andalusia Day, Barcelona worked on Holy Thursday but closed on Easter Monday, and Madrid did the opposite. Spain does not have one holiday calendar. It has a national layer, seventeen regional layers and thousands of local ones.
The fourteen-day framework
Spanish employment law sets a maximum of fourteen paid public holidays a year for workers. Of these, up to twelve are national or regional, and two are local, chosen by each municipality. The national government publishes the general calendar in the official state gazette, usually in the autumn before the year in question, and each autonomous community then publishes its own adjustments. Town councils fix their two local days after that.
The result is that two employees in the same region, but in different towns, can have different calendars, and two employees in the same town can share a calendar that looks nothing like one 50 kilometres away across a regional border.
The national layer
A core set of dates applies across Spain in most years:
- New Year's Day (1 January)
- Epiphany (6 January)
- Good Friday
- Labour Day (1 May)
- Assumption (15 August)
- National Day of Spain (12 October)
- All Saints' Day (1 November)
- Constitution Day (6 December)
- Immaculate Conception (8 December)
- Christmas Day (25 December)
Some of these are fixed for everyone. Others can be swapped by an autonomous community for a regional day, and when a national holiday falls on a Sunday, regions may choose to move it to the Monday. That is why the national list alone is never enough.
The regional layer
Each autonomous community uses its remaining slots for its own days and for choices around Easter. Two patterns account for most of the variation.
Holy Thursday and Easter Monday
Holy Thursday is a holiday in most of Spain, but not in Catalonia. Easter Monday, on the other hand, is a holiday in Catalonia and several other regions, including the Basque Country, and not in most of the rest. The exact list of regions taking each day can change from year to year, so check the regional bulletin.
Regional days
Most communities mark their own day. Well-known examples include:
| Region | Day | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Andalusia | Día de Andalucía | 28 February |
| Community of Madrid | Fiesta de la Comunidad | 2 May |
| Galicia | Día Nacional de Galicia | 25 July |
| Catalonia | Diada Nacional de Catalunya | 11 September |
| Valencian Community | Día de la Comunitat Valenciana | 9 October |
When a regional day falls on a Sunday, the region may move it to Monday or may not. In 2027, for instance, 28 February, 2 May and 25 July all fall on Sundays, so check how each region handles them that year.
The local layer
Every municipality chooses two local holidays, usually linked to its patron saint or a traditional festival. Madrid city observes San Isidro around 15 May, Barcelona observes La Mercè around 24 September, and Pamplona's San Fermín on 7 July is famous well beyond Spain. Smaller towns have their own choices that rarely appear in national lists. For any office, store or warehouse, you need the town's calendar, not just the region's.
Puentes and acueductos
When a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, many people take the Monday or Friday off to create a long weekend, known as a puente (bridge). When two holidays sit close together, such as 6 and 8 December, the result can be an acueducto, a stretch of several days off with only one or two working days in between. These bridge days are not public holidays. Whether they are granted depends on company policy, collective agreements or annual leave.
Worked example: December 2027
December 2027 has 23 weekdays. Constitution Day, 6 December, is a Monday. The Immaculate Conception, 8 December, is a Wednesday. Christmas Day is a Saturday, so it does not remove a weekday.
| Days | |
|---|---|
| Weekdays in December 2027 | 23 |
| Constitution Day (Mon 6 Dec) | −1 |
| Immaculate Conception (Wed 8 Dec) | −1 |
| Working days before any local or regional changes | 21 |
| If staff bridge Tuesday 7 December | 20 |
That single Tuesday sitting between two holidays is the classic acueducto. A team that plans a release for the week of 6 December 2027 should expect only two or three full working days in practice. In Catalonia, the Sant Esteve holiday on 26 December falls on a Sunday that year, which is another reason to check regional rules before assuming a December count.
Other 2027 dates worth noting
Two more national holidays create bridges in 2027. The National Day, 12 October, falls on a Tuesday, so Monday 11 October is a likely puente. All Saints' Day, 1 November, falls on a Monday, giving a long weekend without any bridge needed. Labour Day and Assumption, by contrast, fall on a Saturday and a Sunday, so whether anything moves to a weekday depends on the regional decisions published for that year.
Teams that span regions
For a company with sites in several regions, the practical question is not "what are Spain's holidays" but "which days is each site closed". A shared customer service team split between Madrid and Barcelona, for example, will have different closures around Easter, in early May, in September and on the local saints' days. Building a staffing rota on a combined calendar, where each site covers the other's closures, is often simpler than trying to align the two. For contractual deadlines, define which site's calendar counts.
What to do next
- Map every Spanish location to its autonomous community and its municipality.
- Start from the Spain holiday calendar, then add regional and local days for each site.
- Recheck once the regional bulletins are published in the autumn, since swaps and Monday moves are only confirmed then.
- Look at Spain's 2027 long weekends to anticipate puente requests.
- For notice periods and delivery promises, use the business days calculator with the local calendar for the site that does the work.
