Bank holidays
When is the next bank holiday?
Pick your nation: the next bank holiday, counted down to the second, and the other dates coming up in the months ahead.
On the day this page was last built, the next bank holiday in England and Wales was Christmas Day on Friday, 25 December 2026, 58 days away, followed by Boxing Day on Monday, 28 December 2026. In Scotland the next one was St Andrew's Day, Monday, 30 November 2026, and in Northern Ireland Christmas Day, Friday, 25 December 2026. The countdown above does not depend on that build: it reads your device's clock when the page opens and counts down to midnight at the start of the holiday, in your own time zone. Each bank holiday comes from the official GOV.UK list for the years it covers and from the published rules beyond them. The three nations have different lists, so choosing the right one matters most in January, August and late November, when Scotland's dates differ from the rest of the UK.
Bank holidays in a year, by nation
Bank holidays
8
| On a Monday | 5 |
| On a Friday | 2 |
| Long weekends | 7 |
| Substitute days | 2 |
England and Wales, 2027, as published by GOV.UK.
Rules and dates checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
The next few bank holidays
The countdown shows one date at a time. For planning, the table lists the next six bank holidays in each nation from the day the page was built.
| England and Wales | Scotland | Northern Ireland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 December 2026 (Christmas Day) | 30 November 2026 (St Andrew's Day) | 25 December 2026 (Christmas Day) |
| 2 | 28 December 2026 (Boxing Day) | 25 December 2026 (Christmas Day) | 28 December 2026 (Boxing Day) |
| 3 | 1 January 2027 (New Year's Day) | 28 December 2026 (Boxing Day) | 1 January 2027 (New Year's Day) |
| 4 | 26 March 2027 (Good Friday) | 1 January 2027 (New Year's Day) | 17 March 2027 (St Patrick's Day) |
| 5 | 29 March 2027 (Easter Monday) | 4 January 2027 (2nd January) | 26 March 2027 (Good Friday) |
| 6 | 3 May 2027 (Early May bank holiday) | 26 March 2027 (Good Friday) | 29 March 2027 (Easter Monday) |
How the countdown counts
A bank holiday starts at midnight local time. The countdown takes the current time from your phone or computer, works out the time to the next midnight that opens a bank holiday in the nation you chose, and shows it in days, hours, minutes and seconds. If you are abroad, it counts to midnight where you are, which is what most people want when they plan a call or a trip home. Nothing is sent to a server: the page has the list of dates built in and does the arithmetic on your device.
The countdown also gives the number of working days before the holiday, counting Monday to Friday and leaving out any other bank holiday on the way. That is the figure to use for a delivery or a notice period; the working days calculator does the same for any two dates. If you want a date that is not a bank holiday, such as a birthday or the first day of a course, the days until counter takes any date you type and counts down to it in the same way.
How many are left this year
The simulator below the summary gives, for each nation and year, the total number of bank holidays and how many are still to come after the date you are reading. A typical year has eight in England and Wales, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland. Scotland's list on mygov.scot also points to the local holidays set by councils, which are not national bank holidays and are not counted here. Northern Ireland's dates are listed on nidirect as well as on GOV.UK.
When the next one is a substitute
If the next holiday is marked as a substitute day, the date it celebrates falls at a weekend and the holiday has moved to a weekday, usually the Monday. The countdown always aims at the day off, not at the anniversary, and the list beside it names both, so you can see at a glance that the Monday off is standing in for the Saturday. This is what happens at Christmas 2027: Christmas Day is a Saturday and Boxing Day a Sunday, so the next bank holidays after them are Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December.