St Andrew’s Day 2027: Scotland Bank Holiday Date and Rules

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

St Andrew’s Day 2027 falls on Tuesday 30 November 2027. It is a bank holiday in Scotland only, and in 2027 there is no substitute Monday because the date lands mid-week. It is also a holiday your employer is not obliged to give as a day off: the law that created it left that question to contracts.

The law: St Andrew’s Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007

St Andrew’s Day has been a Scottish bank holiday only since 2007. The Act was introduced as a member’s bill by Dennis Canavan MSP and received Royal Assent on 15 January 2007. It is short: section 1 inserts a new line into the Scottish list in Schedule 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, making the bank holiday “30th November, if it is not a Saturday or Sunday or, if it is a Saturday or Sunday, the first Monday following that day”.

That wording matters. The 1971 Act only covers some weekend cases, and other substitute days are confirmed by Royal Proclamation; St Andrew’s Day has its full weekend rule written into the statute itself. You can therefore work out any future date without waiting for GOV.UK to publish it — which is what we do in the table below for the years not yet on the official list.

The explanatory notes to the Act are just as clear about what it does not do. The 1971 Act, they say, “does not give statutory rights for staff who work on these days to extra pay or time off on bank holidays, that being a matter of contract or agreement between employer and employee”, and it “does not require banks (or any other employer) to close on bank holidays”.

St Andrew’s Day bank holiday dates, 2019 to 2032

Our calculated dates apply the Act’s rule and reproduce every date GOV.UK has published from 2019 to 2028, including the substitute Mondays in 2019, 2024 and 2025. We will replace the calculated rows with the official dates as GOV.UK adds each year.

Employers are not obliged to give the day off

This is the point most people miss. A bank holiday is a day on which banks may close under the 1971 Act; it is not a statutory day off for everyone else. mygov.scot says plainly that bank and public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave. Full-time workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year, and GOV.UK confirms employers can count bank holidays as part of that allowance.

In practice, Scottish employers handle 30 November in one of three ways:

• An extra day off on top of the usual bank holidays.
• A swap: St Andrew’s Day replaces another holiday in the employer’s calendar, such as a local holiday or Easter Monday.
• A normal working day, with the date simply not on the company holiday list.

Your contract or staff handbook will say which applies. If it refers to “bank holidays” without defining them, ask HR whether the Scottish list (nine dates in 2027) or the England and Wales list (eight) is meant. More in bank holiday entitlement, working on a bank holiday and our bank holiday pay calculator.

Making the most of a Tuesday bank holiday

If your employer does give the day off, 2027 is a good year for it. With 30 November on a Tuesday:

• Four days off for one day’s leave: book Monday 29 November and you are off from Saturday 27 November to Tuesday 30 November.
• Nine days for four days’ leave: book Monday 29 November plus Wednesday 1 December to Friday 3 December for a 9-day break from Saturday 27 November to Sunday 5 December.

The next Scottish bank holidays are Christmas and Boxing Day, both substitute days in 2027: Monday 27 December 2027 and Tuesday 28 December 2027. St Andrew’s Day is 27 days before them and 120 days after Scotland’s summer bank holiday on 2 August 2027, so it breaks up the longest gap in the Scottish calendar. See Christmas bank holidays 2027 and long weekends 2027 for the rest of the year.

All Scottish bank holidays in 2027

Scotland has nine bank holidays in 2027 against eight in England and Wales: it adds 2 January and St Andrew’s Day but has no Easter Monday. Full detail on Scotland bank holidays 2027, with the UK-wide comparison on UK bank holidays 2027. Local holidays, set by each council, sit on top — see Scottish local holidays by council.

What is open on 30 November 2027

• Banks: nothing in the Act forces branches to close, and practice varies by bank. Payments are unaffected in the usual way: the Bacs 2025 processing calendar did not treat the Scottish St Andrew’s Day holiday (Monday 1 December 2025) as a non-processing day. See are banks open on bank holidays.
• Schools: term dates are set by each council, so whether schools close on 30 November depends on where you live. Check your council’s calendar and our schools and bank holidays guide.
• Shops, post and transport: most run as normal. For specific services see Post Office opening and trains on bank holidays.
• Rest of the UK: an ordinary Tuesday.

St Andrew is Scotland’s patron saint, and 30 November is the traditional feast day. Events — ceilidhs, church services, Saltire displays — are organised locally; programmes for 2027 had not been announced when we checked on 27 September 2026. Background on the day itself is on our St Andrew’s Day page.