Working days per year holidays with verified dates and sources

What to take away

The three 2027 totals, side by side

All three totals share one base: 261 weekdays, the raw weekday count before any holiday is subtracted. "Working days" is used loosely elsewhere to mean the post-holiday figure, so keep the two numbers apart. The rule behind the base is derived in the annual formula.

The 2027 US federal list, by date

The eleven dates below come from 5 U.S.C. 6103, the statute that names federal holidays. The weekday column decides the deduction.

Eight of the eleven land on a weekday. Juneteenth falls on a Saturday, Independence Day on a Sunday and Christmas Day on a Saturday.

What the weekend observation rule does

OPM states the rule for federal offices: a Saturday holiday moves to the preceding Friday, and a Sunday holiday moves to the following Monday. For 2027 that yields June 18, July 5 and December 24 as observed weekdays.

A weekend holiday costs nothing on its own. The cost appears only when a written rule moves the observed day onto a weekday.

Without that rule the Saturday and Sunday dates remove nothing, and the deduction falls to eight. Observe one Saturday holiday on the preceding Friday and it becomes nine. The gap between 250 and 252 is set by policy, not by the calendar.

Canada, the UK and Australia in 2027

Canada, the UK and Australia publish their own 2027 lists, and the dates differ from the US list. Where national, provincial, state and employer calendars stack, the order that decides which list governs is covered under state and regional calendars.

Canada's federal list gives eight 2027 holidays on weekdays:

Christmas Day, December 25, falls on a Saturday. Boxing Day, December 26, falls on a Sunday.

Ontario substitutes another working day when a public holiday falls on a weekend. For 2027 the Christmas substitute lands on Monday, December 27 and the Boxing Day substitute on Tuesday, December 28, as the Ontario guide explains. A weekday-only count leaves 253; the substituted count leaves 251.

The federal list rests on the Canada Labour Code. UK dates come from royal proclamation and the Scottish Government. Australian dates come from state and territory legislation, with the Fair Work Ombudsman publishing the national calendar.

England and Wales have eight 2027 bank holidays, all on weekdays, giving 253. Scotland's nine also fall on weekdays, giving 252. Australian totals move by state and territory.

Example: what a dropped substitution clause changes

A 2027 calendar copied from a US-style list for a Canadian site might show December 25 and December 26 with no substitute line. Both dates fall on a weekend, so that reading removes nothing and the count stays at 253.

Add the Ontario clause and the same two holidays move to Monday, December 27 and Tuesday, December 28. The count drops to 251. No date changed. A clause was left out of the copy.

The missing line is rarely a date. It is the sentence naming the substitute day.

Keeping the 2027 list checkable

Spread the same closures across a month and the deduction moves, which is what monthly holiday counts sets out. Four records keep an annual figure reproducible months later.

A total with no list attached cannot be reproduced. Keep the recorded count beside the list version that produced it.

Common questions