Easter 2027 is Sunday 28 March: Good Friday, Easter Monday and the School Holidays, Nation by Nation

Last verified 5 November 2026 against the official GOV.UK bank holidays dataset and the published 2026/27 school calendars.

Easter Sunday 2027 is 28 March 2027. Good Friday is Friday 26 March and Easter Monday is Monday 29 March — both bank holidays, except that Scotland does not observe Easter Monday. It is the earliest Easter since 2016, the clocks go forward on Easter Sunday itself, and the school holidays fall differently in each nation.

Easter 2027 bank holidays by nation

Good Friday is a bank holiday in all four nations. Easter Monday is not a bank holiday in Scotland — it is an ordinary working day there unless your council or employer grants a local holiday. That single difference is behind most of the confusion around the Easter weekend.

Across the border, the Republic of Ireland has the opposite arrangement: Easter Monday is a public holiday, Good Friday is not — relevant if you work or shop on both sides (see public holidays in Ireland). For the rest of the year, see the full list of UK bank holidays 2027, or the nation pages for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Easter school holidays 2027: dates by nation

There is no UK-wide Easter school holiday. With Easter this early, councils have split two ways: some break up on Maundy Thursday and take the two weeks that follow Good Friday; others keep an earlier fortnight so that pupils are back in the first week of April. The table gives the published 2026/27 dates we have checked; academies, independent schools and some faith schools set their own.

Three things follow from that table. Welsh and Northern Irish pupils are back a full week before most English pupils, so the week of 5 April is quiet in Wales and busy in England. In Scotland the Easter weekend and the spring break are separate: a week at work with the children at school between them. And if you have children in two nations’ schools — common along the Welsh and Scottish borders — the overlap in 2027 is only Monday 29 March to Friday 2 April. Why schools close on bank holidays at all is covered in schools and bank holidays; always confirm with your own school’s calendar.

Why Easter falls in March in 2027

Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon that falls on or after 21 March, so it can land anywhere from 22 March to 25 April. In 2027 it arrives on 28 March, the earliest Easter Sunday since 2016 (27 March). The next Easter Sunday as early as this is 28 March 2032, and 2035 (25 March) will be earlier still; the earliest in living memory was 23 March 2008.

An early Easter reshuffles spring. Easter Monday to the Early May bank holiday (Monday 3 May 2027) is a gap of 35 days — exactly 5 weeks without a bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In a late-Easter year such as 2028 the two holidays sit only a fortnight apart.

Key Easter 2027 dates

Only Good Friday and Easter Monday carry bank holiday status. Mothering Sunday in the UK is the fourth Sunday of Lent, which is why it also moves with Easter: 7 March in 2027. Orthodox churches follow the Julian reckoning, so Greek, Russian, Serbian and Romanian congregations in the UK celebrate Easter five weeks later, on 2 May 2027 — the Sunday before the Early May bank holiday. Passover begins at sunset on Wednesday 21 April 2027; the dates are on our Jewish holidays 2026–2028 page.

Easter Sunday 2027 is also clocks-forward day

In the UK the clocks go forward one hour at 1am on the last Sunday in March. In 2027 that is Sunday 28 March — Easter Sunday itself. The last time the two coincided was 2024; the next is 2032. In practice:

• Saturday night is an hour shorter. Anyone on a night shift over the Easter weekend works an hour less; check how your employer pays it.
• Sunrise services and early Easter Sunday events run on the new time (BST). Set the alarm with that in mind.
• Phones update automatically; oven clocks, car clocks and some heating timers do not.
• From Easter Sunday evening it is light until around 7.30pm in London (later in the north) — the first long evenings of the year arrive with the long weekend.

How to turn Easter 2027 into a longer break

Easter is the cheapest long break of the year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland because it has two bank holidays back to back. These are the bookings that work in 2027 (check your leave year before you commit — if yours resets on 1 April, the second block falls in the new leave year):

Best value: four days of leave either side of the weekend buys 10 days off in a row. Take both blocks and eight days of leave cover 16 consecutive days, from Saturday 20 March to Sunday 4 April. Parents in England will note that the second block (30 March – 2 April) sits inside the school holiday; parents in Wales will prefer the first.

Scotland: because Easter Monday is a working day, the same ten-day break from Good Friday costs five days of leave rather than four. Some Scottish councils add a spring local holiday — see our Scotland page before you book.

Rules on whether bank holidays count towards your statutory 5.6 weeks are in our guide to bank holiday entitlement; if you are rostered over Easter, read working on a bank holiday and bank holiday pay.

What is open over Easter 2027, day by day

Easter Sunday: large shops closed in England and Wales

Under the Sunday Trading Act 1994, large shops in England and Wales — those with a relevant floor area over 280 square metres — may not open on Easter Day. Smaller convenience stores, pharmacies and petrol-station shops can. Good Friday and Easter Monday carry no special legal restriction, so most supermarkets trade, often on reduced hours. The 1994 Act covers England and Wales only; Scotland has no Easter Sunday rule and Northern Ireland has its own Sunday trading law, so check store times locally. Our supermarket bank holiday hours, Tesco opening times and shop opening guides cover the detail.

Banks, post and bins

Bank branches close on both bank holidays (see banks), there are no Royal Mail deliveries on Good Friday or Easter Monday (Royal Mail) and many councils shift bin collections by a day. Post Office branches inside shops often stay open. Payments due on Good Friday or Easter Monday (Direct Debits, salaries, benefits) usually move to the previous or next working day.

Trains and roads

Network Rail traditionally uses long bank holiday weekends for engineering work, so expect replacement buses on some routes and Sunday-style timetables on the holidays themselves. Details are published by operators a few weeks before; our trains on bank holidays page explains what usually changes. On the roads, Maundy Thursday afternoon and Easter Monday afternoon are the two heaviest periods of the weekend. Parking rules are bank-holiday rules on the Friday and Monday, Sunday rules on the Sunday.

Weather and travel: what late March usually means

A 28 March Easter is a spring-equinox Easter, not an April one. Expect typical late-March conditions — daytime highs around 11–13°C in southern England and lower further north, with frost still possible at night — rather than the warmth of a late-April Easter such as 2028. The upside is price and space: holiday parks, cottages and ferries treat it as the start of the season, and most English schools are off from the Friday, so the weekend itself is busy but the following week is less so than an April Easter. For warmth, the Canaries and the southern Mediterranean are the dependable short-haul options at this time of year.

Easter 2026 to 2030 compared

Easter 2027 is nearly three weeks earlier than 2028, when Western and Orthodox Easter fall on the same Sunday. For the other dates see UK bank holidays 2028, the long weekends 2027 planner and the background pages on Good Friday, Easter Monday and the Easter bank holiday. Northern Ireland also has St Patrick’s Day 2027 just nine days before Good Friday.