Pay for working on a public holiday, by country
Only Canada writes a premium into the statute: an employee who works a general holiday gets the holiday pay plus at least one and a half times the regular rate for the hours worked. Germany compensates with time rather than money, a replacement rest day within eight weeks, after banning holiday work outside listed exceptions. Australia sets pay only for the day off and leaves the rate for working to awards and agreements. Spain says a public holiday is paid and cannot be made up, and Norway bars holiday work unless the work requires it and gives the following Sunday or holiday off.
Scope of this guide
Canada: the Canada Labour Code (federal sector) and the Ontario statutes that LawAsked has loaded. Other provinces are not compared.
| Country | Pay when the day is not worked | Pay when the day is worked | Day off in return | Can the employer require work? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | Base rate of pay for ordinary hours on the day or part-day | No rate in these sections; an entitlement to penalty rates or other compensation is one factor in deciding if a request to work is reasonable | The employer may request work if the request is reasonable; the employee may refuse if the request is unreasonable or the refusal is reasonable | |
| Canada | Holiday pay of at least one twentieth of wages (excluding overtime) from the previous four weeks; one sixtieth of 12 weeks' wages for commission-paid employees with 12 weeks' service | Holiday pay plus wages of at least one and a half times the regular rate for the time worked | A general holiday on a non-working day is given as a paid holiday at another time; continuous-operation employees working the holiday may instead get a paid holiday later | The statute sets the pay for an employee "required to work" on the holiday; the sections quoted set no limit on requiring it |
| Germany | The pay the employee would have earned without the lost work | A replacement rest day within eight weeks when work falls on a public holiday that is a weekday | Work on public holidays is banned from 0 to 24 hours, except in the listed cases where the work cannot be done on a working day | |
| Spain | Public holidays are paid and cannot be made up by working other days | |||
| Norway | An employee who has worked on a Sunday or holiday must be off the following Sunday or holiday | Work on Sundays and holidays is not allowed unless the nature of the work makes it necessary; the employer must first discuss the need with the employees' representatives |
Country by country
Australia
- Rule
- Fair Work Act 2009 ss 114, 116
- National Employment Standards. Penalty rates come from modern awards and enterprise agreements, which are not part of this guide.
- Public holidays are the days listed in section 115 plus days declared by a State or Territory law, so the dates differ by place.
An employee is entitled to be absent from his or her employment on a day or part ‑ day that is a public holiday in the place where the employee is based for work purposes.However, an employer may request an employee to work on a public holiday if the request is reasonable.the employee may refuse the request if: (a) the request is not reasonable; or (b) the refusal is reasonable.whether the employee is entitled to receive overtime payments, penalty rates or other compensation for, or a level of remuneration that reflects an expectation of, work on the public holiday the employer must pay the employee at the employee’s base rate of pay for the employee’s ordinary hours of work on the day or part ‑ day. Canada
- Rule
- Canada Labour Code ss 193, 196, 197
- Federal sector only (Canada Labour Code). Holiday pay is not owed to a continuous-operation employee who does not report after being called in, or who makes themselves unavailable where the conditions of employment allow it.
- Employees excluded from Division I under subsection 167(2), such as managers, are dealt with in section 199, which gives them a holiday with pay at another time instead of the extra pay.
an employer shall, for each general holiday, pay an employee holiday pay equal to at least one twentieth of the wages, excluding overtime pay, that the employee earned with the employer in the four-week period immediately preceding the week in which the general holiday occurs.for each general holiday, be paid holiday pay equal to at least one sixtieth of the wages, excluding overtime pay, that they earned in the 12-week period immediately preceding the week in which the general holiday occurs. An employee who is required to work on a day on which they are entitled to holiday pay shall be paid, in addition to the holiday pay for that day, wages at a rate equal to at least one and one-half times their regular rate of wages for the time that they work on that day.be given a holiday with pay at some other time, either by adding it to their annual vacation or by granting it at a time convenient to both the employee and the employer when a general holiday falls on a day that is a non-working day for an employee, the employee is entitled to and shall be granted a holiday with pay at some other time Germany
- Rule
- EntgFG § 2; ArbZG §§ 9, 10, 11
- Applies to employees covered by the Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz and the Arbeitszeitgesetz. An employee who stays away without excuse on the last working day before or the first after a holiday loses the pay for it.
- The ingested text states no pay premium for holiday work; a collective agreement or contract may give one, which this guide does not cover.
Für Arbeitszeit, die infolge eines gesetzlichen Feiertages ausfällt, hat der Arbeitgeber dem Arbeitnehmer das Arbeitsentgelt zu zahlen, das er ohne den Arbeitsausfall erhalten hätte.haben keinen Anspruch auf Bezahlung für diese Feiertage. Arbeitnehmer dürfen an Sonn- und gesetzlichen Feiertagen von 0 bis 24 Uhr nicht beschäftigt werden. Sofern die Arbeiten nicht an Werktagen vorgenommen werden können, dürfen Arbeitnehmer an Sonn- und Feiertagen abweichend von § 9 beschäftigt werden Werden Arbeitnehmer an einem auf einen Werktag fallenden Feiertag beschäftigt, müssen sie einen Ersatzruhetag haben, der innerhalb eines den Beschäftigungstag einschließenden Zeitraums von acht Wochen zu gewähren ist. Spain
- Rule
- Estatuto de los Trabajadores art. 37.2
- Applies to employees under the Estatuto. At most 14 public holidays a year, two of them local; New Year, Christmas, 1 May and 12 October are always national holidays.
- The article does not say what happens when an employee works on a public holiday, so this guide does not state a premium or a day off in return.
Las fiestas laborales, que tendrán carácter retribuido y no recuperable, no podrán exceder de catorce al año, de las cuales dos serán locales. Norway
- Rule
- Arbeidsmiljøloven §§ 10-8, 10-10
- Applies to employees covered by the Arbeidsmiljøloven. A written agreement can allow work on Sundays and holidays in a tariff-bound business with a special, time-limited need, and an employer and employee can agree work on these days against time off on the employee's own religious holidays.
- The statute text loaded gives no pay supplement for holiday work, so this guide does not state one; supplements are left to agreements.
Arbeid på søn- og helgedager er ikke tillatt med mindre arbeidets art gjør det nødvendig.Arbeidsgiver skal drøfte behovet for søn- og helgedagsarbeid med arbeidstakernes tillitsvalgte før det iverksettes.I virksomhet som er bundet av tariffavtale kan arbeidsgiver og arbeidstakerens tillitsvalgte inngå skriftlig avtale om arbeid på søn- og helgedager dersom det foreligger et særlig og tidsavgrenset behov for dette. Arbeidstaker som har utført søn- og helgedagsarbeid, skal ha arbeidsfri følgende søn- og helgedagsdøgn. Countries not in this table yet
France, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden are missing because the statutes on public holiday work (Code du travail on jours fériés, Arbeitsruhegesetz, Arbeidstijdenwet, Arbetstidslag) are not loaded. Japan is left out because the Labor Standards Act premium in article 37 applies to work on a legal rest day under article 35, not to national holidays. The United States and the United Kingdom are missing: the federal US statutes loaded do not set holiday pay and the UK Working Time Regulations are not loaded.
How this table was built
Every row is taken from the official, consolidated text of the statute, which LawAsked loads from each government’s legislation service.
Each figure is tied to a passage quoted word for word from that text. When the page is served, it checks that every quoted passage is still in the current text of a law that is in force; if a law is amended and its wording changes, that row is hidden until a person reviews it again.
The table shows the statutory minimum only. Collective agreements, awards and individual contracts often give more than the statute, and some countries let a collective agreement set different terms.
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LawAsked, “Pay for working on a public holiday, by country”, https://lawasked.com/guides/public-holiday-work-pay (reviewed October 25, 2026).
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