Bank Holidays 2027 Wales: 8 Dates, Welsh Names and St David’s Day

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

Wales has eight bank holidays in 2027, and they are exactly the same eight as England’s: there is no bank holiday that belongs to Wales alone. St David’s Day, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi, falls on Monday 1 March 2027 — a date that would have given Wales a long weekend if it were a bank holiday, which it is not.

Gwyliau banc 2027: the eight dates in English and Welsh

GOV.UK publishes the England and Wales list in both languages. The Welsh names below are copied from the Welsh-language version of the GOV.UK page (Gwyliau banc y DU); dates and weekdays are generated from GOV.UK’s data rather than typed in.

A few terms are worth knowing if you use Welsh-language payroll software, HR systems or school letters. Gŵyl y banc (plural gwyliau banc) is a bank holiday. Diwrnod amgen is the term GOV.UK uses for a substitute day — in 2027 that applies to both Christmas dates, because 25 December is a Saturday and 26 December a Sunday. Boxing Day is Dydd San Steffan, St Stephen’s Day, and New Year’s Day is Dydd Calan. The three Monday holidays in spring and summer are simply the early-May, spring and summer bank holidays: Gŵyl banc dechrau Mai, Gŵyl banc y gwanwyn and Gŵyl banc yr haf.

The Welsh GOV.UK page also offers the England and Wales dates as a downloadable calendar file (ICS), which is the simplest way to get the 2027 and 2028 dates into Outlook or Google Calendar with the Welsh names.

St David’s Day 2027: Monday 1 March 2027

1 March is Wales’s national day, but it has never been a bank holiday. In 2027 it falls on a Monday; in 2026 it fell on a Sunday and in 2028 it falls on a Wednesday. A Monday date is the one that makes the argument most visible: had it been a bank holiday, it would have produced a three-day weekend from Saturday 27 February 2027.

The campaign for a St David’s Day bank holiday is more than 25 years old. The key moments:

Where things stand in autumn 2026: there is no St David’s Day bank holiday for 2027, and nothing on the GOV.UK list suggests one is coming. If that changes it would have to be announced by the UK Government, and we would update this page.

Why Wales cannot create its own bank holiday

The power to designate bank holidays in Wales is not devolved. It sits with the UK Government, which is why both the 2022 petition and the Welsh Government’s 2025 call went to Westminster. The rest of the UK is different:

• Scotland added St Andrew’s Day through its own legislation, the St Andrew’s Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007, which amended the Scottish list in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971. In 2027 it falls on a Tuesday; see Scotland bank holidays 2027.
• Northern Ireland has St Patrick’s Day written into the 1971 Act’s schedule, and also takes 12 July; see Northern Ireland bank holidays 2027.
• England and Wales share one list in the Act, with no patron saint’s day for either nation. St George’s Day is not a bank holiday either; our England bank holidays 2027 page covers the English side.

What is different for workers in Wales in 2027

Legally, very little. The eight bank holidays, the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks’ paid leave (28 days for a five-day week) and the rule that an employer may count bank holidays within those 28 days are the same on both sides of the border. What differs is practice:

• St David’s Day as a contractual holiday. Some Welsh employers have given 1 March as an extra day — Gwynedd Council did so for its staff in 2022, and a number of social enterprises did the same that year. If your contract gives you St David’s Day, it is a contractual day off, not a bank holiday, and in 2027 it produces a three-day weekend.
• Cross-border commuting. Because England and Wales share the same list, someone who lives in Wales and works in England (or the reverse) has no bank holiday mismatch to manage. That was one of the reasons the UK Government gave for rejecting a Wales-only holiday.
• School terms. Term and holiday dates in Wales are published by each local council. GOV.UK’s school-term finder covers England and Wales; enter your postcode to reach your council’s page. We do not publish 2027–28 term dates because they vary by council.
• Welsh-language records. Contracts, rotas and letters issued in Welsh should use the GOV.UK Welsh names shown above, including diwrnod amgen for the two substitute days in December.

Our guides to bank holiday entitlement and working on a bank holiday apply in Wales exactly as in England.

Making the most of leave in Wales in 2027

Using St David’s Day as one day of annual leave is the cheapest long weekend of the year. After that, the best returns are at Easter and Christmas. The figures below are calculated from the 2027 England and Wales calendar.

Every long weekend for all four nations, including Scotland’s early August holiday and Northern Ireland’s Twelfth, is on our long weekends 2027 page. For the individual holidays see Easter 2027, May bank holidays 2027, August bank holiday 2027 and Christmas bank holidays 2027.

Wales: 2026, 2027 and 2028 compared

An asterisk marks a substitute day. We include St David’s Day for reference, although it is not a bank holiday in any of the three years.

The full four-nation list for 2027 is on UK bank holidays 2027, and the following year is on bank holidays 2028. For more on the Welsh calendar in general, see our Wales bank holidays page.