Bank Holidays 2027 England: All 8 Dates and Leave Planning

Last verified 27 September 2026 against the official GOV.UK bank holidays dataset.

England has eight bank holidays in 2027. Easter comes early — Good Friday is 26 March — and both Christmas holidays move into the following week because 25 December falls on a Saturday. For anyone planning leave, rotas or payroll, the year is front-loaded: three of the eight dates fall before April.

The eight bank holidays in England, 2027

This is the England and Wales list published by the UK government. We generate the table directly from GOV.UK’s own data feed rather than typing dates by hand, and every weekday below is calculated from the date.

The two substitute days at the end of the year are the only unusual entries. When a bank holiday lands on a weekend, the day off moves to the next weekday, which is why Christmas Day is observed on Monday 27 December 2027 and Boxing Day on Tuesday 28 December 2027. The first bank holiday of 2028 is also a substitute: New Year’s Day 2028 is a Saturday, so the holiday is Monday 3 January 2028. The full four-nation picture is on our UK bank holidays 2027 page.

2026, 2027 and 2028 side by side

If you are rolling a leave policy or a shift pattern forward from this year, compare the dates below rather than assuming they repeat. An asterisk marks a substitute day.

Three things change between the years. Easter moves from early April in 2026 to late March in 2027, then jumps to mid-April in 2028 — Good Friday 2028 is 19 days later in the calendar than Good Friday 2027. The late-May and late-August Mondays shift by a few days, as they do every year. And the Christmas pattern flips: in 2026 Christmas Day is itself a weekday, in 2027 both Christmas dates are pushed back, and in 2028 they return to 25 and 26 December. Our 2028 bank holidays page has the following year in full.

How the 2027 calendar falls

• An early Easter. Easter Sunday is 28 March 2027, so Good Friday and Easter Monday both fall in the first quarter. Details, including what opens and closes, are on our Easter 2027 page.
• A short spring gap. Only 35 days separate Easter Monday from the early May bank holiday, and the late-May Monday follows four weeks after that. The spring is well served; see May bank holidays 2027.
• A long autumn drought. After the summer bank holiday on Monday 30 August 2027 there is no bank holiday for 118 days — 84 working days — until Christmas. That stretch is where annual leave does the most good. The late-August date is covered on our August bank holiday 2027 page.
• A split Christmas. The Saturday/Sunday Christmas means the bank holidays are Monday and Tuesday, leaving Wednesday to Friday as normal working days before the New Year substitute on Monday 3 January 2028. See Christmas bank holidays 2027 and New Year bank holidays 2027.

Planning your leave in England in 2027

Most full-time workers in England are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which is 28 days on a five-day week. GOV.UK is explicit that an employer can choose to include bank holidays in that 28. If yours does, the eight 2027 bank holidays leave 20 days to book; if your contract gives bank holidays on top, check the wording before you plan around it.

The table below is calculated from the 2027 calendar: for each bank holiday cluster it shows the smallest number of days you need to book to reach each natural break (a run of days ending on a weekend or bank holiday). Booking fewer days in between rarely adds anything.

The best ratios of the year are at Easter and Christmas. Booking 4 days around Easter gives 10 consecutive days off, and at Christmas 3 days — Wed 29 December, Thu 30 December, Fri 31 December — gives 10 days running from 25 December 2027 to Monday 3 January 2028. Every nation’s options are compared on our long weekends 2027 page.

For employers: rotas, payroll and part-time staff

Spread across the quarters, England’s 2027 bank holidays run 3 in January–March, 2 in April–June, 1 in July–September and 2 in October–December. The first quarter is unusually heavy because Easter falls in March, which affects anyone who budgets overtime or cover by quarter.

The working-day count per month below is weekdays minus bank holidays, useful for pro-rata salary calculations, service-level targets and invoicing periods.

Part-time staff are where disputes usually start. Five of the eight dates are Mondays, so a worker whose regular days exclude Monday gets little direct benefit from bank holidays falling on their day off. GOV.UK’s guidance is that part-time workers are entitled to the same 5.6 weeks pro rata — for example, 16.8 days for someone working three days a week — and fairness is normally achieved by pro-rating bank holidays within that allowance rather than by date. Our guides to bank holiday entitlement, bank holiday pay and working on a bank holiday cover the detail.

School terms and the 2027 bank holidays

School holidays in England are not set nationally. GOV.UK directs parents to find term, half-term and holiday dates on their local council’s website, and academies and free schools can set their own. We do not list 2027–28 term dates here because they vary by area and many are not yet final.

What the bank holiday calendar does tell you is where the pressure points will be. With Good Friday on 26 March 2027, the Easter weekend falls earlier than in most years, so it may sit at the start of, or even before, your area’s Easter school holiday — check the local calendar before booking travel. Many councils build the summer half-term around the late-May bank holiday (Monday 31 May 2027), but that is a local decision, so confirm it with your council. The August bank holiday (Monday 30 August 2027) is the last one before Christmas, so there is no bank holiday at all in the autumn term. Our schools and bank holidays guide explains how closures work.

Regional days that are not bank holidays

England has no regional bank holidays. Several days are widely marked but are ordinary working days in law, because none appears on the GOV.UK list:

• St George’s Day falls on Friday 23 April 2027. It is England’s national day but not a bank holiday.
• St Piran’s Day, Cornwall’s national day, falls on Friday 5 March 2027. It is not a bank holiday; any time off is at the discretion of individual employers.
• The King’s official birthday in June is not a bank holiday either — see our King’s Birthday explainer.

Wales follows the same eight dates; our Wales bank holidays 2027 page covers St David’s Day and the Welsh names of each holiday. Scotland (Scotland bank holidays 2027) has nine and Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland bank holidays 2027) has ten.

Bank holiday or public holiday?

Strictly, not all eight are bank holidays. The House of Commons Library notes that Christmas Day and Good Friday are “common law” holidays in England and Wales rather than bank holidays. Schedule 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 lists Easter Monday, the last Monday in May, the last Monday in August and 26 December for England and Wales; New Year’s Day and the early May holiday are added by royal proclamation. In practice the distinction rarely matters: none of them carries a statutory right to a day off, and GOV.UK lists all eight together. See bank holiday vs public holiday for more.