Rules
Federal Holiday Business Day Counting: Project Dates
Federal holiday business day counting with a real 2025 Memorial Day example, the one-day date shift, and a formula for rebuilding the schedule.
What to take away
- For federal holiday business day counting, identify the governing calendar; a mid-window holiday shifts later dates only if that calendar excludes it.
- Forward and backward counts fail in different places, so the repair is different too.
- The closure list named by the contract decides the answer, not the federal list in general.
- Rerun the count after marking the holiday, and record the drift in days between the old end date and the new one.
What a mid-window closure does to a finished count
A count built in January assumed a five day working week across the whole window. A holiday inserted in week three does not subtract one day from the total. It moves every date after it by one.
So a finished schedule cannot be patched at the end. The sequence of dates is what changed, not the sum of days.
Worked count: Memorial Day 2025
Assume a Monday-through-Friday project calendar and a basis date of Wednesday, May 21, 2025. Count five business days after the basis date. If the calendar treats Monday, May 26 as open, the fifth day is Wednesday, May 28.
Under a calendar that excludes Memorial Day, Thursday, May 22 and Friday, May 23 are days one and two. Tuesday, May 27 and Wednesday, May 28 are days three and four, and Thursday, May 29 is day five. The end date shifts from May 28 to May 29: a one-calendar-day drift.
Federal holidays are listed in 5 U.S.C. § 6103. That statutory list identifies federal holidays, but it does not automatically control every private contract, bank schedule, or project calendar.
Under FRCP 6(a)(1)(C), a deadline moves to the next open day only when its last day falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday. A closure inside the counting window is not covered by that end-date rule.
Four closure lists that can sit inside one window
Four closure lists
| List | Publisher | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Federal holidays | OPM | Federal offices and many private deadlines |
| Banking days | Federal Reserve | Wire transfers and settlement |
| Court days | Federal courts and local rules | Filing deadlines and closures |
| Employer days | The employer | Payroll, shutdowns and cut-off hours |
OPM publishes the federal holiday schedule and the observance rules for holidays that fall on a Saturday or Sunday. The schedule lists Memorial Day on Monday, May 26, 2025; Memorial Day is designated by 5 U.S.C. § 6103 as the last Monday in May.
Four Closure Lists, Four Publishers
List
- Federal holidays
- OPM
- Banking days
- Federal Reserve
- Court days
- Federal and local courts
- Employer days
- The employer
Publisher
- Federal holidays
- Federal offices, private deadlines
- Banking days
- Wire transfers, settlement
- Court days
- Filing deadlines, closures
- Employer days
- Payroll, shutdowns, cut-off hours
What it controls
- Federal holidays
- Banking days
- Court days
- Employer days
A contract usually names one list. For example, a court filing deadline follows FRCP 6(a), while a wire deadline may use the Federal Reserve's Fedwire Funds Service operating schedule. A private contract can define a business day by when named banks are open or by an employer's work calendar, so trouble starts when two lists apply to the same delivery, as happens when payroll follows the employer list and the wire follows the banking list.
Example: a closing date that straddles a holiday
For a mortgage closing, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Regulation Z, 12 C.F.R. § 1026.19(f)(1)(ii)(A), requires the borrower to receive the Closing Disclosure no later than three business days before consummation. For this waiting period, 12 C.F.R. § 1026.2(a)(6) counts every calendar day except Sundays and the legal public holidays specified in 5 U.S.C. § 6103(a).
Assume the borrower actually receives the Closing Disclosure on Friday, May 23, 2025. Saturday, May 24 is day one; Sunday, May 25 and Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, do not count; Tuesday, May 27 and Wednesday, May 28 are days two and three. Consummation therefore cannot occur before Thursday, May 29.
Rebuilding a forward count after the closure appears
Rebuilding a forward count
- Name the basis date and confirm whether the day of the act counts.
- Write down the closure list the contract or rule binds you to.
- Mark every closure that falls inside the window between basis and end.
- Rebuild the count forward from the basis date, one segment at a time.
- Record the drift between the old end date and the new one.
Steps four and five are the ones people skip. The drift is the number worth reporting, because it shows how much slack the closure consumed.
Rebuilding a Forward Count
- Name basis date, confirm day of act
- Write down the bound closure list
- Mark closures inside the window
- Rebuild forward, one segment at a time
- Record drift between old and new end
Running the count backward when the deadline cannot move
A backward count is a schedule rather than a sum. Every closure you remove pushes the start date earlier, and the joins between months are where days go missing.
That is why subtract business days can return a start date nobody expected, and why it pays to check where the slack sits before promising one.
For the forward direction, add business days depends on four decisions: whether the basis date counts, which days make up the working week, which closure list applies (including observed dates), and what cut-off hour moves a request to the next workday. To calculate, advance one calendar day at a time and count only dates allowed by those choices until reaching the requested number of business days.
When the project crosses a provincial or port calendar
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland counts need both provincial holiday lists, since neither province matches the federal calendar. Port and offshore schedules add closures on days the province is open.
A count that treats a Canadian segment as federal working days will overstate the time available.
Where slack should sit after the recalculation
Keep the slack you already had. Rebuild only the segment after the holiday, and leave the earlier dates untouched.
Payroll runs add a cut-off hour to the same count, so a closure can push a deposit date without changing the number of working days. Record both numbers, the day count and the adjusted deposit date.
Common questions
Does a federal holiday always remove one working day from the count?
Yes, when the parties are bound to the federal list and the holiday falls inside the window. It removes one working day and slides every later date by one.
What if the holiday falls on a Saturday?
OPM observes a Saturday holiday on the preceding Friday for federal employees, so a Saturday date can still close a Friday. Check the observance rule, not just the date.
Which calendar applies when the project crosses into Canada?
Whichever list the contract names. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland use provincial lists that differ from the federal one, and port or offshore calendars close days both of them keep open.
Can I just add a day to the end date?
Only when the closure sits in the last segment. If it sits mid-window, rebuild from the basis date instead, because earlier dates move as well.
