Scotland Bank Holidays 2027

Scotland has nine bank holidays in 2027 — one fewer than 2026, because the one-off holiday granted for the World Cup final does not repeat. Two of the nine are substitute days created by weekend dates.

The full 2027 list

These dates are published by the UK government and are identical in both of the sources we check: gov.uk’s bank holidays list and the python-holidays reference dataset. Where the two disagree we say so; on Scotland 2027 they agree exactly.

What is different from England and Wales

Four structural differences, all of them long-standing:

• 2 January is a bank holiday in Scotland and nowhere else in the UK. In 2027 it falls on a Saturday, so the holiday moves to Monday 4 January. Background on why 2 January exists.
• There is no Easter Monday bank holiday. Good Friday is a Scottish bank holiday; the Monday after Easter is not. Easter Monday 2027 is 29 March, and it is an ordinary working day north of the border.
• The summer bank holiday is early. Scotland takes the first Monday in August — 2 August 2027 — while England, Wales and Northern Ireland take the last Monday, 30 August 2027.
• St Andrew’s Day on 30 November is a Scottish bank holiday. In 2027 it lands on a Tuesday, so no long weekend.

Side by side, that gives Scotland nine days and England and Wales eight in 2027. Our UK bank holidays 2027 page sets out all four nations together.

Why 2027 has one fewer day than 2026

2026 was unusual. Alongside the standard calendar, gov.uk lists a World Cup bank holiday for Scotland on Monday 15 June 2026 — a one-off addition, not a permanent fixture. Strip that out and 2026 and 2027 have the same nine-day shape. Do not carry the June date forward into a 2027 planner.

A bank holiday is not automatically a day off

This matters more in Scotland than most people realise. As mygov.scot puts it plainly, bank and public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave. Your entitlement comes from your contract, and many Scottish employers count bank holidays towards statutory annual leave rather than adding them on top.

Scottish employers also frequently swap them. It is common for a workplace to ignore Good Friday and take a local trades holiday instead. Our pages on bank holiday entitlement and working on a bank holiday cover the rules; the local calendar is a separate question.

Local holidays run alongside the national list

Each of Scotland’s 32 councils sets its own local public holidays, and these are the days that actually close schools, council offices and many local employers. Glasgow’s autumn holiday, Edinburgh’s Victoria Day and the summer trades holidays appear nowhere on the gov.uk list but shut large parts of a city. We keep a council-by-council table of Scottish local holidays for exactly this reason.