Wales shares England’s bank holiday calendar exactly — eight days, same dates, no local additions. That surprises some people, given Scotland and Northern Ireland both have holidays tied to national identity (St Andrew’s Day, St Patrick’s Day) while Wales doesn’t.
The full 2026 list
| Date | Day | Holiday |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January | Thursday | New Year’s Day |
| 3 April | Friday | Good Friday |
| 6 April | Monday | Easter Monday |
| 4 May | Monday | Early May Bank Holiday |
| 25 May | Monday | Spring Bank Holiday |
| 31 August | Monday | Summer Bank Holiday |
| 25 December | Friday | Christmas Day |
| 28 December | Monday | Boxing Day (substitute) |
The St David’s Day question
This is the one thing almost every Wales-specific search on this topic is really asking: is 1 March a day off? No — St David’s Day is a national day of celebration in Wales, with school parades, eisteddfodau, and widespread daffodil- and leek-wearing, but it has never been made a statutory bank holiday. There have been repeated campaigns and Senedd (Welsh Parliament) motions calling for it to become one, most recently gaining renewed attention around devolution debates, but as of 2026 it remains an ordinary working day unless your specific employer or school chooses to close.
This is different from Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the equivalent national days (St Andrew’s Day, St Patrick’s Day) are statutory bank holidays — a distinction that comes down to how each nation’s holiday legislation evolved, not any judgement about the day’s cultural importance.
Planning around the calendar
- Easter (3–6 April): the natural four-day break, popular for trips to Pembrokeshire, Snowdonia (Eryri) or the Gower.
- Spring Bank Holiday (25 May): typically overlaps with Welsh school half-term, making it the busiest domestic travel weekend of the two May holidays.
- Christmas (25–28 December): Boxing Day falls on a Saturday in 2026, so the substitute lands on Monday 28 December, giving a four-day finish to the year.
Since the underlying dates are identical to England’s, see our England bank holidays 2026 guide for the same table with an England-specific angle, or 2026 bank holidays UK for the full four-nation comparison.