Public holidays in Germany, 2028
Germany observes 9 nationwide public holidays in 2028. After weekends and those holidays are removed, the working year comes to 252 days.
Every public holiday in 2028
| Date | Day | Holiday | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, 1 Jan | Saturday Weekend | New Year's Day Neujahr |
Nationwide |
| Thu, 6 Jan | Thursday | Epiphany Heilige Drei Könige |
DE-BW, DE-BY, DE-ST |
| Wed, 8 Mar | Wednesday | International Women's Day Internationaler Frauentag |
DE-BE, DE-MV |
| Fri, 14 Apr | Friday | Good Friday Karfreitag |
Nationwide |
| Sun, 16 Apr | Sunday Weekend | Easter Sunday Ostersonntag |
DE-BB |
| Mon, 17 Apr | Monday | Easter Monday Ostermontag |
Nationwide |
| Mon, 1 May | Monday | Labour Day Tag der Arbeit |
Nationwide |
| Thu, 25 May | Thursday | Ascension Day Christi Himmelfahrt |
Nationwide |
| Sun, 4 Jun | Sunday Weekend | Pentecost Pfingstsonntag |
DE-BB |
| Mon, 5 Jun | Monday | Whit Monday Pfingstmontag |
Nationwide |
| Thu, 15 Jun | Thursday | Corpus Christi Fronleichnam |
DE-BW, DE-BY, DE-HE, DE-NW, DE-RP, DE-SL |
| Sat, 17 Jun | Saturday Weekend | 75th anniversary of the uprising of June 17, 1953 75. Jahrestag des Aufstandes vom 17. Juni 1953 |
DE-BE |
| Tue, 15 Aug | Tuesday | Assumption Day Mariä Himmelfahrt |
DE-SL |
| Wed, 20 Sep | Wednesday | World Children's Day Weltkindertag |
DE-TH |
| Tue, 3 Oct | Tuesday | German Unity Day Tag der Deutschen Einheit |
Nationwide |
| Tue, 31 Oct | Tuesday | Reformation Day Reformationstag |
DE-BB, DE-MV, DE-SN, DE-ST, DE-TH, DE-HB, DE-HH, DE-NI, DE-SH |
| Wed, 1 Nov | Wednesday | All Saints' Day Allerheiligen |
DE-BW, DE-BY, DE-NW, DE-RP, DE-SL |
| Wed, 22 Nov | Wednesday | Repentance and Prayer Day Buß- und Bettag |
DE-SN |
| Mon, 25 Dec | Monday | Christmas Day Erster Weihnachtstag |
Nationwide |
| Tue, 26 Dec | Tuesday | St. Stephen's Day Zweiter Weihnachtstag |
Nationwide |
11 further dates are observed in some regions only and are not counted in the working day totals above.
Working days month by month
| Month | Calendar days | Weekend | Holidays | Working days | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 31 | 10 | 0 | 21 | 168 |
| February | 29 | 8 | 0 | 21 | 168 |
| March | 31 | 8 | 0 | 23 | 184 |
| April | 30 | 10 | 2 | 18 | 144 |
| May | 31 | 8 | 2 | 21 | 168 |
| June | 30 | 8 | 1 | 21 | 168 |
| July | 31 | 10 | 0 | 21 | 168 |
| August | 31 | 8 | 0 | 23 | 184 |
| September | 30 | 9 | 0 | 21 | 168 |
| October | 31 | 9 | 1 | 21 | 168 |
| November | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 | 176 |
| December | 31 | 10 | 2 | 19 | 152 |
| Year | 366 | 106 | 8 | 252 | 2,016 |
Reading these figures
The working day count treats Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, which is the standard working week in Germany. Only nationwide holidays are deducted; a date observed in one region alone still counts as a working day here, because a national figure that moved with regional calendars would describe nobody accurately.
1 of this year's public holidays fall on a weekend and therefore adds no time away from work: New Year's Day (1 Jan). Whether these are compensated with a substitute day depends on national rules rather than on the calendar, so confirm before planning around them.
The longest working month is March at 23 days; the shortest is April at 18. That spread of 5 days matters for anything billed or accrued monthly, which is why payroll and capacity plans that assume an even year drift by the end of it. The thinnest quarter is Q2, carrying 60 working days across April, May, June.
Compared with 2027, which held 256 working days, 2028 is 4 working days shorter. Where a target is carried over from one year to the next unchanged, that difference is absorbed silently unless someone accounts for it.
Against the 204 countries covered here for 2028, Germany's 9 nationwide holidays put it below the median of 12, around the 18th percentile. The range across all countries this year runs from 3 to 50.
The holidays produce 4 breaks of three consecutive non-working days or more. The longest runs 4 days, from 14 April 2028 to 17 April 2028, built around Good Friday and Easter Monday. A further 2 working days are stranded between a holiday and a weekend, where one day of leave buys a break of four days or more. The full breakdown is here.
4 of this year's holidays sit on a different calendar date than in 2027: Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday. Dates that move cannot be carried forward from last year's planning spreadsheet, which is the most common way a holiday is missed.
Notes on Germany
Germany has no single national holiday calendar. Only German Unity Day on 3 October is fixed by
federal law; every other date is set by the individual Land, which is why the number of days off
ranges from around nine in the northern city states to thirteen in Bavaria. Corpus Christi,
Assumption, Reformation Day and All Saints' Day each apply in some Länder and not others,
broadly along the older confessional boundaries. The figures on this page count only the days
observed nationwide, so a worker in Munich has more time off than the national total suggests
and a worker in Hamburg has close to it.
There is no substitute day when a holiday falls on a weekend. A year in which several dates land
on a Saturday or Sunday is simply a longer working year, and the difference between a good year
and a bad one runs to three or four days. That matters for anything budgeted in working days
rather than calendar months.
Augsburg is worth knowing about if you have people there: the city observes the Friedensfest on
8 August, which no other municipality in Germany does.