How Public Holidays Work in Germany

Germany recognises 9 public holidays that apply in every federal state, but the full calendar an employee actually observes depends heavily on where they work. The nationwide set covers New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, German Unity Day, and both Christmas days. Everything beyond those nine is decided at the level of the individual Bundesland (state), which is why headline totals range from around 9 days in the north to as many as 13 or 14 in Bavaria.

The state-only holidays are mostly religious in origin and reflect regional confessional history. Epiphany (6 January) is observed in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and Saxony-Anhalt; Corpus Christi in the predominantly Catholic states; Assumption in Bavaria and Saarland; All Saints' Day in the Catholic west and south; and Reformation Day (31 October) across the mostly Protestant east and north. As a result, two colleagues on the same payroll can have genuinely different days off simply because their offices sit on either side of a state border.

A hard rule for planning is that holidays are not moved when they fall on a weekend. If Labour Day or German Unity Day lands on a Saturday or Sunday, the day is simply lost, with no substitute granted. This makes the real number of rest days vary from year to year.

Work on Sundays and public holidays is tightly restricted under the Arbeitszeitgesetz, which bans it in principle and permits it only for defined sectors such as healthcare, hospitality, and emergency services, usually with compensatory rest. For multi-state employers the practical takeaway is that leave calendars, premium pay, and staffing rotas cannot be run from a single national list. Each site has to be mapped to its own state calendar to keep payroll and absence tracking accurate.