US Public Holidays 2026: All 11 Dates and Which Are Paid

Key Takeaways

• The United States (US) has 11 public holidays in 2026, and only one of them moves. Independence Day falls on Saturday, July 4, so federal offices close on Friday, July 3, instead.
• Outside certain federal and federally funded contracts, none of the 11 is legally paid time off in the private sector. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require payment for time not worked, so a paid holiday is a benefit you choose to give.
• 81% of private industry workers had access to paid holidays in March 2025, and there is no general federal minimum, so the length of your list is a competitiveness decision.
• Friday, July 3, is the one day in 2026 when federal offices are shut but the Federal Reserve Banks stay open. Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments settle as usual, so keep your pay date and move only the approvals your office would have handled that Friday.
• Holiday work is not automatically time and a half. Federal overtime is a 40-hour weekly test; some states, including California, add daily overtime. Paid holiday hours nobody worked do not have to count toward the federal 40.

US Public Holidays in 2026

The United States has 11 federal holidays in 2026. Ten of them fall on a weekday and are observed on the day itself. The eleventh, Independence Day, falls on Saturday, July 4, so the preceding Friday, July 3, is treated as the holiday for most federal employees.

Those 11 dates are the federal baseline, and the baseline binds federal employees. Federal law does not require private employers to observe any of them. Outside certain federal and federally funded contracts, it does not require them to pay for the ones they observe either. Some states also restrict which businesses may open on certain holidays. Otherwise, which days you close and whether you pay for them are your decisions.

Below is the full 2026 list, with what closes on each date. We have split the government column from the banking column on purpose, because in 2026 they disagree once.

Dates and the observance rule: US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), 2026 federal holidays, read September 22, 2026. Reserve Bank closures: Federal Reserve Board, holidays observed by the Federal Reserve System, read September 22, 2026. ACH processing: Federal Reserve Financial Services, FedACH holiday schedule, read September 22, 2026.

Three points in that table matter for planning.

• Eight of the 11 dates create a long weekend. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Columbus Day are Mondays. Juneteenth, the observed Independence Day, and Christmas Day are Fridays. Veterans Day lands midweek on a Wednesday, and Thanksgiving on its usual Thursday.
  
  
• Only Independence Day moves in 2026. OPM’s rule is that a Saturday holiday is treated as falling on the preceding Friday for most federal employees, and a Sunday holiday on the following Monday. July 4 is the only one of the 11 that lands on a weekend in 2026.
  
  
• The Reserve Banks do not follow the offices on July 3. The Federal Reserve rule runs the other way: for holidays falling on Saturday, the Reserve Banks and Branches are open the preceding Friday. So July 3 is a normal Reserve Bank business day even though federal offices are shut.

Which of These Days Your Staff Get Paid For

For most private employers, federal law leaves the answer to you.

• The US Department of Labor (DOL) states that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require payment for time not worked, which covers holidays, federal or otherwise. There is no general federal minimum number of paid holidays and no federal requirement to close at all.
  
  
• There is also no general federal requirement to pay a premium for working on a holiday. Holiday pay of any kind is a term of employment, set by your policy, by an individual contract, or by a collective bargaining agreement.
  
  
• The exception is federal contract work. On a federal service contract over USD 2,500 covered by the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act (SCA), the wage determination states the holiday benefits and usually names the paid holidays. Under the SCA holiday rules, a full-time employee who works one of them is owed an extra full day’s pay, up to 8 hours, or another paid day off, unless the wage determination sets a different standard.
  
  
• Construction contracts covered by the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts work differently: holiday pay is required for a class of workers only if the contract’s wage determination specifies it.
  
  
• For everyone else, what exists is a market norm. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that 81% of private industry workers had access to paid holidays in March 2025. That is access to the benefit, not a count of days, and BLS does not publish a current average number of days we are willing to print.

So when a candidate asks how many paid holidays you give, there is no number you are obliged to match. There is only the number your competitors give, and the fact that roughly four in five private sector workers get something. Pick your list, write it down, and apply it the same way every year.

Workforce Planning Around the 2026 Calendar

Leave requests

Long weekends like Memorial Day or Labor Day produce predictable paid leave spikes. Publish each year’s calendar before the year begins and set one approval rule, first come or rotation based, so nobody has to arbitrate it in May.

In customer-facing work, you may want blackout dates for paid leave and a rotation lock on peak demand weeks.

• Cap simultaneous absence per team.
  
  
• Collect leave intent 6 to 8 weeks ahead and keep a live shift calendar.
  
  
• Encourage long weekends over full weeks off. A long weekend is easier to cover.
  
  
• Offer a floating holiday or premium pay to the people who work the high-demand days.

Payroll runs and the one date that trips people up

The ACH network that carries payroll direct deposits settles only on days the Federal Reserve Banks are open. So your cutoffs follow the Reserve Bank calendar, and your office calendar only decides who is in to approve the run.

In 2026, the two calendars agree on ten dates and disagree on one.

• Friday, July 3, is a Reserve Bank business day. Federal offices are closed for the observed Independence Day, but the Reserve Banks are open, because their rule for a Saturday holiday is to stay open the preceding Friday. If your office closes that Friday, move any approval due that day to Thursday, July 2, and keep the pay date. A payment dated July 3 settles as usual, so the run itself does not need to move.
  
  
• The other ten close the Reserve Banks. New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all fall on a weekday in 2026, so a pay date on any of them has to move.
  
  
• Set the approval deadline, the file submission, and the target pay date once, in writing, for the whole year.
  
  
• Run a dry-run report before each holiday week to catch missing hours and unpaid premiums while there is still time to fix them.

State rules that change the arithmetic

Federal law sets no general holiday premium, but state wage rules can still change what a holiday shift costs you. Two worked examples, both from the state authority’s own text:

• In California, overtime also runs by the day. Per the Department of Industrial Relations, hours over 8 and up to 12 in a workday, and the first 8 hours on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek, are paid at one and a half times the regular rate. Hours over 12 in a workday, and over 8 on that seventh day, are paid at double the regular rate. A long holiday shift can reach either threshold.
  
  
• In New York, the Hospitality Industry Wage Order says that on each day the spread of hours exceeds 10, an employee receives one additional hour of pay at the basic minimum hourly rate. Spread of hours is the interval from the start to the end of the workday, including meals and time off duty, so a split holiday shift can trigger it on fewer than 10 worked hours.

Premium pay rules for holiday work vary by state, and they change. Massachusetts, for example, ended its Sunday and holiday premium pay requirement for some retail workers on January 1, 2023, so check with the labor department in each state you employ in.

In Maine, for example, a store with more than 5,000 square feet of interior customer selling space may not open on Easter Day, Thanksgiving Day, or Christmas Day, under Title 17, section 3204 of the Maine Revised Statutes. State holiday calendars differ too: California, New York, and Texas each publish their own.

Shift work and contractors

Holiday staffing brings split shifts and short-notice scheduling, particularly in retail, logistics, and customer service, and contractors are often brought in for the spike. Document the compensation rule before the week starts.

• Set on-call expectations explicitly. Work a non-exempt employee does on a day off, including reading and answering email, can be compensable time, so a vague check-in habit is worth turning into a written rule.
  
  
• Decide whether you pay a holiday premium, and keep it separate from FLSA overtime, which is a 40-hour weekly test and nothing to do with which day of the year it is.
  
  
• For contractors, the Statement of Work (SOW) or Master Service Agreement (MSA) governs. Holiday coverage is billable if the contract says it is, and not otherwise.

Employer Obligations in the United States

Holiday pay and shift rotation come down to payroll planning. Four points decide what you owe and how you prove you paid it:

• No general federal requirement for paid holidays. Federal law does not make private employers observe the federal calendar or, outside certain federal contracts, pay for the days they do observe. Many employers publish a holiday list anyway, because it is what the market expects.
  
  
• Exempt and non-exempt are treated differently. Federal overtime for non-exempt staff triggers above 40 hours in a workweek, and paid holiday hours nobody worked are not hours worked, so they do not have to count toward that 40. Exempt employees must, with limited exceptions, receive their full salary for any week in which they perform any work.
  
  
• Contracts and union agreements can bind you where the statute does not. A collective bargaining agreement or an individual contract can mandate time and a half or double pay for holiday shifts, and it overrides your handbook.
  
  
• Records are the defense. Miscalculated holiday pay can turn into a wage claim, and a wage claim is decided on your records. Keep hours worked, premiums paid, floating days granted, and approvals. The FLSA requires at least three years for payroll records and two years for time cards and work schedules, and your state may require longer.

Federal Baseline Against Company Policy

The middle column is the federal baseline, set by federal law and federal agency rules. The right column is what you decide as a private employer.

Payroll and Compliance Checklist for Holiday Weeks

Holiday weeks run smoothly when the pay rules, the cutoffs, and the shift schedule are settled before the week arrives.

• Written holiday pay policy. Which days you observe, who is eligible, and whether a premium applies on top of FLSA overtime. Under the federal rules on holiday premiums, a premium of at least time and a half stays out of the regular rate that overtime is calculated from, and a smaller one has to be included in it.
  
  
• Separate tracking. Track holiday hours and overtime eligibility as different things in your timekeeping system. Configure the federal 40-hour trigger first, then layer the state rules that apply to each location.
  
  
• One master calendar. Keep a single company holiday list and annotate it with local pay rules. One list is easier to keep right than a calendar per state that has to be reconciled later.
  
  
• Record retention. Under the FLSA recordkeeping rules, keep payroll records for at least three years and time cards and work schedules for two, longer where your state requires it. That covers hours worked, premiums paid, floating days granted, and approvals given.
  
  
• Cutoffs mapped to the banking calendar. Ten of the 11 dates close the Federal Reserve Banks in 2026. Friday, July 3, does not. Map your pay dates against that list once, at the start of the year.

How We Help Employers in the United States

Running a US workforce means holding consistent, compliant policies on holiday pay, shift rotation, and leave across states that do not agree with each other. That is the part we take on.

• Employer of Record: we become the legal employer for your US staff, so you can hire without setting up an entity of your own. We handle onboarding, contracts, tax registrations, and the ongoing compliance.
  
  
• Global payroll: we set company-wide and state-specific pay rules, log holiday leave and overtime separately, align the transfer date with the ACH calendar, and run the calculations.
  
  
• Policy guidance: we advise on how to structure holiday benefits so they hold up against what your competitors offer, in the US and in the other markets you employ in.
  
  
• Scale: payroll across multiple US states, with each state’s holiday schedule and pay rules configured and monitored in one place.

If your team is not only in the US, the harder version of this problem is running several national holiday calendars against one payroll cycle. We cover that in our overseas expansion checklist, and the US employer tax side sits in our US Social Security tax guide. For contractors outside the US, our Global Contractor service handles onboarding and payment.

FAQ: US Public Holidays 2026

How many public holidays does the US have in 2026?

Eleven. New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. Ten fall on a weekday. Independence Day falls on Saturday, July 4, and is observed on Friday, July 3.

Are US public holidays paid in 2026?

Not by law, for most private sector staff. The Department of Labor confirms the FLSA does not require paid holidays, so whether you are paid depends on your employer’s policy or your contract. The exception is some federal contract work, where a Service Contract Act or Davis-Bacon wage determination can require holiday pay. Most federal employees are paid for the 11 days. Everyone else is paid because their employer, their contract, or a federal contract provides it.

How many paid holidays do US employers usually give?

There is no standard and no general legal minimum, so the number varies from employer to employer. What is measured is access: 81% of private industry workers had access to paid holidays in March 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The count itself is an employer decision, so the only reliable answer is the one in your own handbook.

Which 2026 US holidays give a long weekend?

Eight of the 11. Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 19), Washington’s Birthday (February 16), Memorial Day (May 25), Labor Day (September 7), and Columbus Day (October 12) are Mondays. Juneteenth (June 19), the observed Independence Day (July 3), and Christmas Day (December 25) are Fridays. Veterans Day falls on a Wednesday and Thanksgiving on a Thursday.

What happens when a US holiday falls on a weekend in 2026?

For most federal employees, a Saturday holiday is treated as falling on the preceding Friday and a Sunday holiday on the following Monday. In 2026, this affects one date only: Independence Day, Saturday, July 4, observed Friday, July 3. Private employers can mirror that, grant a floating day instead, or make no substitution at all. Whichever you choose, settle it before you publish your 2027 calendar. The rule matters more in 2027, when Juneteenth, Independence Day, and Christmas Day all fall on a weekend.

Are US banks closed on the 2026 federal holidays?

The Federal Reserve Banks close on ten of the 11. Their rule for a holiday falling on a Saturday is to stay open the preceding Friday, so Friday, July 3, 2026, is a normal day for the Reserve Banks even though federal offices are shut, and ACH payments settle as usual. It is the only date in 2026 where the office calendar and the Reserve Bank calendar disagree. Your own bank sets its own branch hours, so check its holiday calendar too.

Do US employers have to pay time and a half for holiday work?

Not under the FLSA. Holiday work is not automatically time and a half. Federal overtime triggers when a non-exempt employee works more than 40 hours in a workweek, and paid holiday hours nobody worked do not have to count toward that 40. Some states, including California, add daily overtime. A premium becomes mandatory only if a contract, a collective bargaining agreement, a federal contract wage determination, or a specific state rule creates it, so check your state labor department for the state you employ in.

If I work with a US client, when are their offices closed in 2026?

Start with the 11 federal dates in the table above, with Independence Day observed on Friday, July 3. Then treat that as an approximation. US private employers are not required to follow the federal calendar, and many close on a shorter list, add the day after Thanksgiving, or shut the week between Christmas and New Year.

If a delivery date depends on it, ask the client for their published holiday calendar rather than working from the federal one.

Are contractors entitled to holiday pay in the US?

Independent contractors are self-employed, so they are generally not entitled to holidays or holiday pay unless the contract or SOW says otherwise, for example by allowing a higher rate for federal or state holidays. Make sure you understand the difference between Contract of Service and Contract for Service before making the hire.

Can employers substitute federal holidays with floating holidays?

Yes. Many employers offer floating holidays or swap days instead of fixing the list, which works well across a multi-state or multi-faith workforce. Publish the rules for eligibility, accrual, and expiration, and apply them the same way for everyone.