Public holidays and days off in Portugal: which days are non-working and what you are paid for them
Newcomers need to know this in their very first year, and not for the sake of the calendar: book an appointment at AIMA or the tax office on a day that is a holiday in that municipality and the appointment will not happen, while the next slot can be months away. The main point first: Portugal has thirteen mandatory public holidays, and the list is fixed by law. Your town's municipal holiday and Carnival Tuesday are not on that list: they are a day off only for people whose employment contract or collective agreement says so — but state offices in that municipality are closed regardless. Then, in order: what the days are, what happens to a holiday that falls on a Saturday, how work on a public holiday is paid, what is closed and what is open on such a day, and how to find out your municipality's holiday.
Thirteen days when everything is closed
Such a day is called a feriado obrigatório — a mandatory public holiday. Portugal has thirteen of them, listed in Article 234 of the Labour Code:
— 1 January, New Year's Day; — Good Friday (Sexta-Feira Santa) — a movable date, in 2026 it was 3 April; — Easter Sunday (Domingo de Páscoa); — 25 April, Freedom Day: the anniversary of the 1974 revolution; — 1 May, Labour Day; — Corpus Christi (Corpo de Deus) — the Thursday sixty days after Easter, in 2026 on 4 June; — 10 June, Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities; — 15 August, Assumption Day; — 5 October, anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic; — 1 November, All Saints' Day; — 1 December, Restoration of Independence; — 8 December, Immaculate Conception; — 25 December, Christmas Day.
The list is closed: Article 236(2) expressly forbids any contract — whether an employment contract or a collective agreement — from creating holidays that are not in the law. The only exception is Article 234(2): Good Friday may be observed on another day of Easter week if that day has local significance.
Two things follow from the list that people ask about most often. First: there is not a single mandatory public holiday in September — everything that happens that month is municipal. Second: 24 and 31 December are ordinary working days, as is 2 January. The fact that half the country does not work on those days rests not on the law but on a government order, and there is a separate step about it below.
“You can google the list of national holidays with feriados nacionais 2025 Nobody works on these days, for schools they count as Sundays”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal24.04.2025
“Just a reminder that tomorrow is a public holiday in Portugal, and bank branches are closed. Dia de Todos os Santos Non-working days 2024”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkbanksdeportugal31.10.2024
A holiday that falls on a weekend is not moved anywhere
Portugal does not have the shifting of holidays familiar from Russia: a holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is simply lost. Article 234(3) allows individual mandatory holidays to be moved to the Monday of the following week, but only by a special law — as of September 2026 no holiday has been moved this way, and there is no compensation for the lost day.
In 2026 four of the thirteen dates fell on a weekend: Easter on 5 April, 25 April, 15 August and 1 November. In 2027 there will be five: Easter on 28 March, 25 April, 1 May, 15 August and 25 December. Easter Sunday is always extra in this count — it is a Sunday by definition.
On the other hand, holidays do not eat into your annual leave. Under Article 238(2), working days for leave purposes are Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays: if a holiday falls within your leave, it is not deducted from your twenty-two days of leave. Hence the local habit of taking leave in a week with a holiday — and hence the packed beaches in the first week of June.
And one more rule people forget: under Article 232 an employee is entitled to at least one day off a week, and a public holiday does not replace that day off.
“Holidays left in 2025 Before the end of 2025 Portugal has five official holidays left. Two of them fall on a weekend and three on weekdays, which makes for a few long weekends. Holidays that fall on a weekend this year: — 5 October, Republic Day (Implantação da República) — Sunday. — 1 November, All Saints' Day (Dia de Todos os Santos) — Saturday. The holidays that fall on weekdays are in December: — 1 December, Restoration of Independence Day (Restauração da Independência) — Monday.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatsetubal30.09.2025
Municipal holiday: the next town has a day off, but you don't
Besides the thirteen national ones, there is your own municipality's holiday — the feriado municipal, the patron saint's day of the concelho. In Lisbon it is 13 June, St Anthony's Day (that is what the Lisbon city council's own news portal calls it); on 8 September 2026 several municipalities had their municipal holiday at once — for example Odemira and Marvão, and both councils announced it on their websites. The date can also be movable: in Matosinhos it is Whit Tuesday, so it is a different date every year.
The key point about this day is in Article 235 of the Labour Code: the municipal holiday and Carnival Tuesday are optional holidays. Such a day becomes a day off only if this is written into your sector's collective agreement or your employment contract. If there is no such line, your employer is entitled to call you in to work as on a normal day, and there will be no holiday supplement. Article 235(2) allows the day to be swapped for another one by agreement.
The holiday is counted by where you work, not by where you are registered as living: if you live in Almada but work in Lisbon, your municipal holiday is Lisbon's. For people who cross the river every day, this regularly causes confusion.
What this looks like in practice can be seen from a notice from a school in Oeiras that parents passed on in a chat: on 7 June, the municipal holiday of Oeiras itself, the school is open, but on 13 June, Lisbon's holiday, it is closed — under its internal rules it adopted Lisbon's holiday rather than its own municipality's (translated from Portuguese: “We remind you that under our rules we are open on Wednesday 7 June, the municipal holiday of Oeiras, and closed on 13 June, the municipal holiday of Lisbon, which we have adopted”).
What to do: find the word feriados in your contract and check whether it mentions the municipal holiday and Carnival Tuesday. If not, ask HR which collective agreement (contrato coletivo de trabalho) covers your sector: in retail, hotels and construction these days are most often set out there. How an employment contract works in general and what it must contain is covered in the guide What to do if your employer won't give you an employment contract.
“portuguese, obviously. trying to figure out the municipal holidays - are they working days by default or not. they're not mentioned in my contract and they're not in my employer's system either. though verbally they say these are paid days off.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes02.07.2024
“30 May — municipal holiday of Matosinhos (Porto district), Whit Tuesday (2023)”
Translated from Portuguese; the original is at the linkukrporto30.05.2023
“It all depends on the municipality. The national holiday is on the 8th. But there are a lot of municipal holidays. Here's the notice from our school: ATENÇÃO: Relembramos que de acordo com o nosso RI, estamos abertos 4ª feira, dia 07 de junho (feriado municipal de Oeiras) e encerrados dia 13 de junho (feriado municipal de Lisboa, que adotámos).”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal07.06.2023
Government offices are always closed on their municipal holiday
This is where the catch lies that causes appointments to fall through. Civil servants are covered not by the Labour Code but by the LTFP — Lei n.º 35/2014. Article 122(2) extends the general holiday rules to them, and Article 122(3) adds a short sentence: “the municipal holiday of the locality is observed”. No conditions or agreements attached.
So on the day of the municipal holiday in that municipality, the council, the tax office, the Segurança Social office, the Loja do Cidadão, the AIMA office, state schools and nurseries are all closed — while a private employer two blocks away works as if nothing had happened. On such a day a person is at work but cannot go anywhere to get things done.
The practical conclusion is simple: before booking an appointment at AIMA, the tax office or a consulate, check the date. Mandatory holidays are obvious straight away; the municipal one is on the council website of the municipality you are going to (not your own). Appointments that land on a holiday are usually rescheduled, but the new slot is set by the system, not by you, and you may have to wait a long time for it. How booking an appointment and renewing a residence permit work is covered in the guide How to book an appointment at AIMA and renew your residence permit.
“I had a similar situation. My appointment was on 10 June. We're from Yekaterinburg, We'd already bought plane tickets to Moscow for three family members, rented a flat. And on 6 June a letter comes from the consulate saying they're not working on the 10th (public holiday) and our appointment is moved a week later. The tickets were lost, but in the end they accepted the documents. But thanks for at least warning us. Hang in there, I hope it all works out!”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkdigitalnomadportugal10.10.2024
“🇵🇹 A four-day strike will take place at AIMA next week The Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração union has called a strike of AIMA staff on 1, 2, 3 and 5 June. 4 June is a public holiday, so in effect the service's work will be seriously disrupted the whole week — Monday to Friday. The union speaks of “serious structural problems” at AIMA: staff complain of worsening working conditions, a growing workload, a shortage of staff and technical resources, and the lack of a separate professional career category for migration officers.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkdigitalnomadportugal28.05.2026
Carnival, “bridges” and tolerância de ponto
Carnival Tuesday (terça-feira de Carnaval) is not a mandatory public holiday — it is in the same Article 235 as the municipal day. But every year before Carnival the government signs an order on tolerância de ponto: civil servants are released from work that day. In 2026 this was Despacho n.º 1853/2026 of 13 February — a day off on 17 February for staff of the direct state administration and public institutes, except for services that must stay open in the public interest. For the civil service, Carnival also has a separate rule: under Article 122(4) of the LTFP the Council of Ministers decides, and a contract clause that says otherwise is void.
Non-working days at the end of December come about the same way: Despacho n.º 15085-A/2025 of 18 December gave civil servants 24, 26 and 31 December 2025 off. These are not holidays and not “pre-holiday days” under the law — this is a one-off order by the Prime Minister that is issued anew every year and does not apply to private companies. Your employer may give you the same day off, or may not: that is up to them.
This is also where the word ponte, a “bridge”, comes from — a working day between a holiday and the weekend that people take as leave, and that the state sometimes declares a non-working day by its own order. There is no automatic “bridge” in the law. In chats this habit is explained with a saying quoted in Portuguese; translated from Portuguese: “Three potatoes on the plate, football on Sundays and holidays that fall on a weekday — with a ‘bridge’ if possible — and there you have a happy Portuguese”.
For a newcomer this means the following: on these days government offices are closed, while you are most likely working. The order is announced a week or two in advance, and until it is announced it is not worth planning a visit to a government office on that day.
“Carnival Tuesday is not an official holiday, but on this day the executive authorities usually grant a day off.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal11.02.2026
“Tolerância de ponto 24,26 and 31 December!!! Days off at all state institutions and often at banks. If you had appointments on that day, they'll be rescheduled #SEFnews”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkru_Portugal_pt19.12.2025
“Save this calendar of public holidays for 2024 Feriados - holidays when nobody works And pontes (the pink days in the calendar) are ‘bridges’, i.e. weekdays between feriados and fim-de-semana (Saturday, Sunday), which are also declared days off. Something like our long May holidays 😁 For the Portuguese, pontes are part of the cultural code, even José Saramago wrote about them: Com três batatas no prato, futebol aos domingos, e feriados que calhem em dia de semana (com ponte, se possível) temos o português feliz.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal15.01.2024
How much you are paid for working on a public holiday
The first rule is Article 269(1): for a public holiday an employee receives their normal pay, and the employer may not “compensate” for it with overtime on another day. In other words, a holiday is not deducted from your salary and does not have to be worked off.
The second rule is in Article 269(2). If the company is not required to close on the holiday (a café, shop, hotel, hospital, security firm) and the person works their normal shift, they are entitled to one of two things, at the employer's choice: time off equal to half the hours worked (descanso compensatório) or a 50% supplement on the pay for those hours. It is the employer who chooses, not the employee — and this is perhaps what surprises newcomers most: there is no “double pay” in Portuguese law.
The third rule covers the case where holiday work turns out to be overtime (trabalho suplementar), that is, beyond your normal schedule. Then it is calculated under Article 268: a 50% supplement for each hour until you have done a hundred overtime hours in the year, and 100% for each hour after that hundred. This comes from a 2023 amendment known as the Agenda do Trabalho Digno.
In the civil service it is the same: Article 165 of the LTFP repeats word for word the rule on time off for half the hours or a 50% supplement.
The law classes a breach of either rule as a serious administrative offence (contraordenação grave). If holiday pay is not paid at all, the usual procedure applies: first ask your employer in writing, then complain to ACT, the labour inspectorate. The inspectorate makes the employer follow the rules but does not recover money: for money you go to the labour court. More on this in the guide What to do if your employer won't give you an employment contract.
In conversations what comes up most often is not the law but agreements: some people have a higher holiday rate written into their contract, while others work without a contract and get nothing for holidays.
“Filipina, €9 an hour, min 35 hours a week, weekends and holidays , also overtime or late hours at x1.5 rate Full-time, we pay for a taxi if the weather's bad/it's late, everything covered on trips together (tickets, accommodation, food, rate).”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkpequenos_PT20.10.2025
“I can find the draft contract, hourly rate, paid weekly as agreed Paid holiday, if we're on holiday we still pay, so it was in our interest to line them up:) The contract sets higher rates for holidays and extra hours (late hours)”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkpequenos_PT07.04.2026
“Nannies are usually paid for the number of hours worked. Never heard of a nanny being paid for holidays and leave, and sick days. Must be some kind of nanny on a contract”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkpequenos_PT26.07.2024
What is closed on a public holiday and what is open
The law says it in one sentence: on mandatory public holidays all activities that are not permitted on Sundays must close or suspend work (Article 236(1)). And on Sundays almost everything is permitted in Portugal: shops, service businesses, cafés and restaurants have free opening hours (Decreto-Lei n.º 48/96, Article 1(1)), and only the council can restrict them by its own decision (Article 3).
Hence a picture that confuses newcomers at first. Closed: government offices of every kind, the council, the tax office, Segurança Social, AIMA, the courts, bank branches, CTT post offices, state schools and nurseries, notaries and registries. Open: supermarkets and shopping centres, cafés and restaurants, public transport (each operator has its own holiday timetable, most often the Sunday one — check its website).
Pharmacies have their own arrangement: each municipality has a duty rota (escalas de turnos) approved by the regional health administration, and every pharmacy must display it at the entrance; the duty pharmacy shows a green cross lit up at night (Decreto-Lei n.º 307/2007, Articles 28 and 30). So not all pharmacies are closed on a holiday — but you need to look up the specific duty pharmacy in advance.
A separate word on banks: the branch is closed, but cards, Multibanco and MB Way work. However, a transfer sent on a holiday will go through on the next working day — this is not a glitch but normal banking practice; allow an extra day if you are paying tax or rent right up against the deadline.
Two days a year break the general pattern: on the evening of 24 December and the evening of 31 December shops close earlier than usual, and on 25 December and 1 January almost everything in small towns is closed, including some supermarkets. Neither is set by law — it is the chains' own decision, and they announce it a week ahead.
“in general there are few places in Europe where you can shop after 22.00. And Portugal is still one of the better options, at least shops are open there on Sundays and holidays.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatporto21.02.2026
“no idea how they handle it through the website.. from my experience with Caixa there's a little elf sitting there who sorts out every customer's transactions by hand all by himself but only works until six on weekdays and doesn't work weekends or holidays.. maybe Vodafone has the same..”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatleiria09.02.2026
Schools, nurseries and children
State schools and nurseries are closed on mandatory public holidays — for them a holiday is treated as a Sunday. The municipal holiday is more complicated: the school itself writes into its internal rules (regulamento interno) which municipal day it observes. It can even happen that a school is open on its own municipality's holiday but closes on the neighbouring one's — the one where most of its pupils live.
Private nurseries and schools have their own calendar, and it is usually more generous: in chats they are praised for staying open in summer and criticised for closing on every local holiday. This is a matter not of law but of your contract with the nursery — ask for the year's calendar before you sign.
February's Carnival is worth remembering separately: formally it is not a holiday, but the school calendar has a Carnival break, and you have to find somewhere for the children for a few days. Parents learn about it in August, when the school publishes the calendar for the year — look at it straight away, not in February.
How school and nursery work, and where and when to enrol a child, is covered in the guides How school works in Portugal and How to get your child into a nursery.
“Private ones don't have strikes. But they take days off more often, so it's practically strikes, and you're paying on top of that. Municipality Day - day off, Immaculate Conception Day - day off, Lisbon's patron saint's day - day off, even though the school is in the Greater Lisbon area, not in Lisbon itself. One of the latest “holidays” - Bank Workers' Day (it's called something different here). They justified it by saying it's the day of a related sector closely connected with the school's activities. State schools were open meanwhile.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal27.01.2023
“So far I've only had experience with a nursery Pluses of private - no strikes, no school holidays either, just public holidays, fewer kids in the group And communication seems easier, at the state one we handed the kids over at the fence, never even crossed paths with the teachers”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal20.04.2026
“Yes, probably. And they take kids from 8, and are only closed in August and on public holidays. No need to look for separate camps for the school holidays.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal20.04.2026
How to find out your municipality's holiday and plan the year
There is no single official “working-days calendar” in Portugal — the first thing that trips up newcomers used to a calendar for the year approved by the government. Mandatory holidays come from Article 234 of the code and do not change. Everything else has to be pieced together:
— the municipal holiday — on the website of the câmara municipal of the municipality where you work. Look in the news or notices section (avisos e editais) for an announcement that services are closed: “serviços municipais encerrados”. The council will also tell you the date if you phone; — your own day off — in your employment contract and your sector's collective agreement; — your child's days — in the school or nursery calendar for the school year; — tolerância de ponto — in the Diário da República and in the news, one or two weeks before the day.
In the Azores a regional holiday is added to the national list — Segunda-Feira do Espírito Santo, the Monday after Pentecost, also known as the Day of the Autonomous Region of the Azores (Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 19/2006/A, Article 6). In 2026 it was 25 May, in 2027 it will be 17 May. Madeira has its own regional days, set by regional acts: check the list locally — they are not in the general holiday law.
And finally, the most practical point. Public holidays in Portugal are not only days off but also queues: before long weekends free slots disappear at government offices and clinics, and afterwards the backlog is cleared. If you have a deadline — submitting documents, renewing your card, paying tax — do not leave it right up against a holiday: there are fewer working days that week than it seems.
“for responding, everyone! We got the calendar back in August, I have it. It's only the school holidays, public holidays, the February carnival. There's never any break in November. And it's exactly at the start of November that, if you ask me, a short pause is really missing.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkschoolinportugal13.11.2025
What to bring
- Your employment contract — the line about feriados
- The name of your sector's collective agreement (contrato coletivo de trabalho) that covers your job
- Your payslip for a month with a public holiday — to check the supplement or time off
- The school or nursery calendar for the school year
- The website of the câmara municipal of the municipality where you work
- The date and number of your appointment at AIMA, the tax office or the consulate
Where people most often trip up
- There are thirteen mandatory public holidays, the list is fixed by Article 234; a contract cannot create its own
- There is not a single mandatory public holiday in September — all September days off are municipal
- A holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is not moved and is not compensated in any way
- The municipal holiday and Carnival Tuesday are optional: a day off only under your employment contract or collective agreement
- The municipal holiday is counted by where you work, not by where you are registered as living
- Government offices in your municipality are closed on the municipal holiday regardless — there will be no appointments that day
- 24 and 31 December are ordinary working days; a one-off order makes them non-working, and only for the civil service
- For working on a public holiday you get time off for half the hours or a 50% supplement, and the employer chooses
- Overtime on a public holiday — 50% per hour, and after a hundred overtime hours in the year — 100%
- A holiday within your leave is not deducted from your twenty-two days of leave
- Shops and cafés are usually open on public holidays: their opening hours are free
- There is no single official holiday calendar — look up the municipal day on your council's website