Public holidays in Germany

By law, "the Sundays and the public holidays remain protected as days of rest from work and of spiritual elevation" (Art. 139 WRV, part of the German constitution via Art. 140 GG). Thus all Sundays are, in a manner, public holidays - but usually not understood by the term "holiday" (except for, normally, Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday).

Public holidays apart from the Sundays (there must be some of them constitutionally) can be declared by law by either the Federation or the Länder for their respective jurisdictions. By federal law, only the German Unity Day is made a holiday at present (Unity Treaty, Art. 2 sect. 2); the others, even the ones celebrated all over Germany, are made holidays by state legislation.

List by state

Holiday	Local name (in German)	Date
New Year's Day	Neujahrstag	1 January	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Epiphany	Heilige Drei Könige	6 January	Y	Y												Y
Good Friday	Karfreitag	Easter Sunday - 2d	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Easter Monday	Ostermontag	Easter Sunday + 1d	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Labour Day	Tag der Arbeit	1 May	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Ascension Day	Christi Himmelfahrt	Easter Sunday + 39d	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Whit Monday	Pfingstmontag	Easter Sunday + 50d	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Corpus Christi	Fronleichnam	Easter Sunday + 60d	Y	Y					Y			Y	Y	Y	(1)			(2)
Peace Festival	Friedensfest	8 August		(3)
Assumption Day	Mariä Himmelfahrt	15 August		(4)(5)										Y
German Unity Day	Tag der Deutschen Einheit	3 October	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Reformation Day (6)	Reformationstag	31 October				Y	Y(9)	Y(9)		Y	Y(9)				Y	Y	Y(9)	Y
All Saints	Allerheiligen	1 November	Y	Y								Y	Y	Y
Repentance and Prayer Day (7)	Buß- und Bettag	Second Wednesday before the First Advent		(5)											Y
Christmas Day	Weihnachtstag	25 December	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
St Stephen's Day / Boxing Day	Zweiter Weihnachtsfeiertag	26 December	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Total number of holidays per state (8)			12	13	9	10	10	10	10	10	10	11	11	12	11	11	10	10

Notes:

Y	- public holiday is celebrated in that state.
(1)	Public holiday only in few Sorbian communities.
(2)	Public holiday only in the Catholic district of Eichsfeld.
(3)	Public holiday only in the city of Augsburg.
(4)	Public holiday only in approx. 1700 communities with predominantly Catholic population and in the cities of Augsburg and Munich.
(5)	Schools are closed all over the state on that day.
(6)	One-time public holiday in all states, including those not normally observing Reformation Day, to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.
(7)	Public holiday in all states until 1994. The holiday was discontinued with introduction of nursing care insurance. Saxony is the only state where employers do not have to pay for nursing care insurance (paid by employees in that state) and where the holiday is still kept.
(8)	For states where some holidays are not observed uniformly all over the state, such holidays are included in state's total number of holidays if celebration of those holidays is predominant and widespread in that state: Bavaria: with Assumption Day, without Peace Festival. Saxony and Thuringia: without Corpus Christi.
(9)	Four states decided to permanently adopt the Reformation Day as permanent holiday starting in 2018 (Bremen[1], Hamburg[2], Lower Saxony[3] and Schleswig-Holstein[4]).

In addition the state of Brandenburg has formally declared Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday as public holidays. As these are Sundays anyway, they have been left away by the other states, nor counted in the table above (the state of Hesse even declared all Sundays public holidays).

Quiet days

A couple of days are designated stille Tage (quiet days) by state legislation, which regularly means that public dancing events, music at inns (if live or if not much quieter than usual) etc. are prohibited.

Some public holidays are quiet days:

• Good Friday
• Prayer and Repentance Day (where it is a public holiday and in a couple of other states)
• All Saints (where it is a public holiday)

One de facto public holiday (not determined by law, because it is always on a Sunday, but with officially organized celebrations) is a quiet day:

• Memorial Day (33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time)

One other Sunday is a quiet day:

• Totensonntag (the German-Protestant equivalent of All Souls Day), on the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year

Some days may be quiet days without being public holidays:

• Christmas Eve (beginning in the afternoon, in some states)
• Ash Wednesday (in Bavaria)
• Holy Thursday (in some states; in some of them beginning in the evening)
• Holy Saturday (in some states)
• All Souls' Day (in Lower Saxony and the Saarland)

In a limited number of cases - apart from All Saints which, however, has long been associated in popular understanding with remembrance of the dead -, the status of quiet days is also given to festivities joyous in nature: in Hesse, the highest Christian holidays are half-quiet days (until midday) and in Rhineland-Palatinate, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day are two-thirds-quiet days (until 16 o'clock). For details see the German article on the dancing ban.

Flag Days

A yet third category that may, sometimes, be called "holidays" in a sense are the "flag days" (Beflaggungstage). Only the very highest institutions, and the military, use the national flags at every day, so the directives when flags are to be displayed mark the days in question as special.

Flags are to be shown by Federal Decree on

• Holocaust Memorial Day (January 27, half-mast)
• Labor Day
• Europe Day (May 9)
• Constitution Day (May 23)
• Remembrance of June 17th. This day used to be a public holiday under the title of "German Unity Day" until that unity actually was achieved.
• World Refugee Day
• Remembrance of July 20
• German Unity Day
• Memorial Day (half-mast)
• Election Day (Bundestag, European Parliament)

and by state decrees on other days, such as election days for state parliaments, state constitution days, anniversary of the election of the Federal President (in Berlin) and so forth.

Frequently flags are ordered ad hoc to be shown at half-mast in cases of national mourning.

Unofficial holidays

Either Carnival Monday ("Rose Monday") or Mardi Gras is a de facto holiday in some towns and cities in Catholic western and southern Germany which have a strong Carnival tradition.

Also, Christmas-Eve is developing into a sort of semi-holiday: from the middle of the afternoon, it is practically treated as a holiday, and while in the morning shops are still open, working for other businesses (apart from those that work even on holidays) is becoming more and more unusual; schools are closed in any case.

Customs about holidays

Ascension Day (Christi Himmelfahrt) and Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam) are both always on Thursdays. By taking only one day's leave, employees can have a four-day weekend.

The Three Kings Day, better known as Epiphany, is 6 January, the day after the 12 days of Christmas. In parts of Germany, it has its own local customs.

Public holidays in the former German Democratic Republic

See also

• Holidays in Nazi Germany

References