Methodology

Before you rely on a figure from StatHolidays for something with real consequences, it is worth knowing how that figure was produced and where its limits are. This page explains both.

Where the dates come from

Our holiday dates start from an open, public domain dataset that collects the calendars published by national governments. We review that data before it goes live on the site.

How firm a date is depends on how the country sets it. When a holiday is fixed in statute, the statute is the final word. Many holidays are set differently, though: by a proclamation issued each year, by a religious authority, or by observation of the moon or another astronomical event. For those, the date we show is the best projection available at the time, and the official date can turn out to be different.

The counting rule

We treat every date as a working day unless it falls on that country's weekend or is a public holiday observed across the whole country. Those are the only two things subtracted. There is no allowance for leave, closures or custom.

The weekend is recorded separately for each country. Saturday and Sunday is the most common pattern, but a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa rest on Friday and Saturday, and a few have only one weekly rest day. Applying the same weekend everywhere would give the wrong answer for all of them.

Ranges and date shifts

When you count the working days between two dates, both ends of the range are included. A range that starts and finishes on the same working day therefore contains one working day.

Shifting a date forward or backward by a number of working days works differently. The date you start from is day zero and is never counted; the first working day after it (or before it, when subtracting) is day one.

Deliberate exclusions

Regional holidays. Holidays observed only in a state, province, canton or other subdivision are listed on the relevant country page but not subtracted from national totals. For the people in that region the day is genuinely off; for everyone else in the country it is a normal working day. Counting it nationally would be wrong for both groups.

Substitute days. Countries handle a holiday that lands on a weekend in different ways, and some move the day off to a weekday while others do not. We only include a substitute day when one has been officially published, in which case it appears as a separate dated entry. We never infer one, because a guessed substitute would quietly change the working day count.

Other calendars. Half days, closures specific to one sector, school holidays, company shutdowns, bank settlement calendars and stock exchange trading days are all outside what this site covers. Some of them differ from the public holiday calendar in ways that matter a great deal for payments and payroll.

How the data is kept current

We refresh the current year and the year ahead on a regular basis. Past years are left stable: if a date was changed after the fact, for example by a proclamation issued at short notice, the historical record may still show the date as it was first published.

What these figures are not

Nothing on StatHolidays is legal, tax, payroll or employment advice. A calendar cannot tell you how much leave or holiday pay someone is entitled to; that turns on the employment contract, the jurisdiction and, frequently, a collective agreement. When a date has legal or contractual consequences, check it against the governing text or the responsible national authority.

Sending a correction

Write to hello@statholidays.com with the country, the year and the holiday in question. A link to the official source, if you have one, helps us confirm the change quickly.