Scottish Local Holidays by Council, 2026

Scotland has no national list of local holidays. Each of the 32 councils sets its own, some set them town by town, and no central body publishes them together. This is the closest we can get, with the source named for every row.

How to read this table

Two things to hold in mind. First, most councils publish only the current year, so a 2026 list may be revised. Second, several councils set holidays by settlement rather than area — Aberdeenshire and Moray in particular — so the entry names an example town and the pattern rather than a single list.

Dates below are 2026 unless stated. They sit alongside the national Scottish bank holidays, which are a separate list published on gov.uk and covered on our bank holidays in Scotland page.

The 32 councils

The patterns worth noticing

• A spring holiday in April and an autumn holiday in September or October are near-universal, but the exact Monday varies by weeks between neighbouring councils.
• Easter treatment splits the country. Good Friday is a Scottish bank holiday; Easter Monday is not. Edinburgh, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Falkirk, Stirling and others nonetheless take Easter Monday as a local holiday, while Dundee takes neither and uses its own spring Monday.
• Victoria Day survives in a handful of areas. Edinburgh takes 18 May 2026, Dundee 25 May, Inverclyde 1 June. Most councils do not observe it at all.
• The summer trades dates stagger deliberately. Edinburgh from 4 July, Aberdeen from 13 July, Glasgow Fair on 20 July, Dundee on 27 July. The gaps are historic and were never coordinated by anyone.
• The islands go their own way. The Western Isles splits its summer holidays between Uist and the Lewis, Harris and Barra group; Orkney’s Dounby Show Day is confirmed only when the show date is fixed.

Local holiday or bank holiday?

The distinction decides what is actually shut. A bank holiday closes banks and stops interbank settlement across the whole of Scotland. A local holiday closes that council’s offices, its schools and, often, local construction sites — and nothing else. Supermarkets, banks and trains treat a local holiday as an ordinary day.

If you are trying to work out whether you are entitled to the day off, neither list decides it: entitlement comes from your contract. See bank holiday entitlement and our guide to trades holidays in Scotland for how Scottish employers typically handle the two calendars.