St Andrew's Day 2026

Type of holiday: bank holiday, a non-working day.

St Andrew's Day falls on 30 November and is a bank holiday in Scotland only. Andrew, one of the twelve apostles and the brother of Peter, has been the patron saint of Scotland since at least the medieval period; the saltire — a white diagonal cross on blue — represents the shape of the cross on which he is said to have been martyred, and it is the oldest national flag still in use in Europe.

Its legal status is unusual and often misdescribed. The St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007 designated the date a bank holiday, but it did not create an entitlement to a day off. Employers may give the day, or may substitute another day of their choosing, and in practice many Scottish workplaces open as normal on 30 November. Banks close and it appears on the official list, which is why gov.uk shows it as a Scottish bank holiday and why this site counts it as a non-working day for Scotland — but the reality inside individual businesses is patchier than the listing suggests.

What happens on the day

Celebrations are modest by comparison with Hogmanay or Burns Night on 25 January. Historic Environment Scotland has generally opened a number of its properties without charge over the weekend, there are ceilidhs and traditional music nights, and public buildings fly the saltire. Meals lean on Scottish produce — cullen skink, haggis, neeps and tatties, cranachan. Outside Scotland the date passes without notice; Andrew is also patron saint of Greece, Russia, Romania and the Ukrainian city of Kyiv, and the day is more prominent in some of those places than it is in England.

Counting and calendars

The usual substitute day rule applies: 30 November on a Saturday or Sunday moves the bank holiday to the following Monday, pushing it into December. Because the date sits at the end of a month, it is worth watching for anyone working to month-end submission deadlines with a Scottish body — the last working day of November is not always the 30th north of the border.

As a regional holiday it is deducted from Scottish working-day counts here and kept in a UK-wide one. England, Wales and Northern Ireland work the day in full.