Which UK bank holiday calendar applies to your plans?

·Published: 16 September 2026

The UK has three bank holiday calendars: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Choosing between them starts with the location of the activity you are planning. A visit to Cardiff uses the England and Wales list; an appointment in Edinburgh uses Scotland's; a meeting in Belfast uses Northern Ireland's. Your home address does not necessarily identify the relevant calendar. If your plans involve more than one nation, compare the lists for each place rather than assuming that a holiday at home applies everywhere.

What the three calendars share

Six regular holidays appear in all three lists: New Year's Day, Good Friday, the early May bank holiday, the spring bank holiday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The early May holiday normally falls on the first Monday in May, while the spring holiday normally falls on the last Monday in May. These shared entries provide a useful starting point, but they are not a complete calendar for any of the three areas. Looking only at dates observed across the whole UK leaves out holidays that matter locally.

The usual annual pattern contains eight bank holidays in England and Wales, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland. These totals describe the recurring lists, so they should not be treated as a promise about every year: additional holidays and changes to the usual dates can occur. The totals also conceal an important difference. Scotland does not simply have the England and Wales calendar plus one extra day. Its Easter and August arrangements differ, as well as its January and November entries.

England and Wales: a shared list

England and Wales share the same bank holiday calendar. Alongside the six common entries, they observe Easter Monday and the summer bank holiday on the last Monday in August. For calendar purposes, a journey between Manchester and Cardiff therefore stays within the same holiday list. Easter Monday follows Easter Sunday, so its date changes from year to year. When planning an Easter activity, look at the whole Friday-to-Monday period: Good Friday and Easter Monday are both listed holidays, with the ordinary weekend between them.

Cultural celebrations do not automatically add entries to this list. St David's Day on 1 March and St George's Day on 23 April are not regular bank holidays in Wales and England respectively. A calendar that marks these occasions may be useful for identifying celebrations, but its highlighted dates should not all be read as bank holidays. Keep the purpose of the calendar in mind: a list of notable dates answers a different question from a list used to identify weekday holidays.

Scotland: check January, Easter and August

Scotland adds 2 January and St Andrew's Day on 30 November to the six shared holidays. It also observes its summer bank holiday on the first Monday in August, rather than the last. Easter Monday is absent from the Scottish bank holiday list. These differences affect plans at several points in the year, so changing only the August date on an England and Wales calendar would still leave an incomplete Scottish version. Use the Scottish list as a whole when the activity takes place in Scotland.

Consider an Easter visit to Edinburgh followed by an August visit to Glasgow. Good Friday appears on the Scottish calendar, but Easter Monday does not; in August, the relevant summer holiday is near the start of the month. Neither fact establishes whether a particular museum, office or venue will open. A bank holiday calendar identifies the status of a date, while the organisation's own arrangements establish whether your planned activity can happen. An ordinary weekday on the national list is not a guarantee that every organisation will be available.

Northern Ireland: two additional dates

Northern Ireland shares Easter Monday and the late August summer bank holiday with England and Wales. It also has St Patrick's Day on 17 March and the Battle of the Boyne holiday on 12 July, also known as Orangemen's Day. Those two additional entries belong to Northern Ireland's list alone within the UK. For an activity in Belfast or Derry, a calendar labelled only England and Wales would therefore miss relevant dates in both March and July, even though the Easter and August entries would look familiar.

The distinction follows the location, rather than the reach of a celebration. St Patrick's Day may be marked in places elsewhere in the UK, but that does not place it on their bank holiday calendars. For example, if you are arranging a meeting involving people in Belfast and Birmingham, mark the Northern Ireland holiday in your shared plan even if the England and Wales calendar shows an ordinary weekday. Where attendance depends on several locations, checking every relevant list makes the difference visible before you settle on a date.

Match the year and the actual activity

After choosing the geographical list, check the year and any substitute days. When a fixed-date bank holiday falls at a weekend, a substitute weekday can carry the bank holiday instead. If Christmas Day is a Saturday and Boxing Day a Sunday, the substitutes fall on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December. For a conventional Monday-to-Friday working-day count, first leave out weekends, then exclude the applicable weekday holidays. Do not subtract the original weekend dates again: they have already been removed from the count.

Finally, record both the calendar and the practical arrangement behind your plan. For a visit, that means the destination's holiday list and the venue's opening times. For a meeting, it means the relevant locations and the participants' availability. For a working-day estimate, state which national list you used and whether the start and end dates are included. If a plan crosses a border, attach the appropriate calendar to each stage. This keeps a holiday in one place from being mistaken for either a UK-wide closure or a day when everyone else is available.