Regional public holidays in Germany: where they apply

What makes a holiday regional

A public holiday is regional if it applies in only part of a German state (Bundesland). Under the public holiday laws (Feiertagsgesetze) of the 16 states, three days are affected: Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam) in Saxony and Thuringia, Assumption Day (Mariä Himmelfahrt) in Bavaria and the Augsburg Peace Festival (Augsburger Hohes Friedensfest). Where exactly they apply is set, depending on the state, by an ordinance, a finding of the statistics office, a transitional rule or, for Augsburg, the law itself.

Regional holidays are not the same as holidays that apply statewide but not in every state, such as All Saints' Day (Allerheiligen) or Reformation Day (Reformationstag). Setting public holidays is in principle up to the states; only German Unity Day is federal law. Which days apply in which state is shown in the public holidays by state dataset.

Regional public holidays and where they apply

Bavaria: Assumption Day and the Peace Festival

In Bavaria, Assumption Day on August 15 is a public holiday in municipalities with a predominantly Catholic population (Art. 1(1) no. 2 BayFTG). The State Office for Statistics determines which ones based on the latest census, comparing Catholic and Protestant residents (Art. 1(3) BayFTG). After the 2022 census, the day is a holiday in 1,708 of the 2,056 municipalities and not in 348. It applies everywhere in Upper and Lower Bavaria, while in Middle Franconia it is not a holiday in 81.0 percent of municipalities.

The list changes with each census. The finding based on the 2022 census has applied since 2025: six municipalities gained the holiday, including Baiersdorf and Weisendorf, and two lost it, Marktschorgast and Seßlach.

Where August 15 is not a public holiday, Catholic employees may stay away from work, except for work that is allowed on holidays or needed to keep the business running. Apart from losing pay for the missed time, they must not suffer any disadvantage (Art. 4 no. 2 BayFTG).

The Augsburg Peace Festival on August 8 is a public holiday only in the city of Augsburg (Art. 1(2) BayFTG). In 2027, both regional Bavarian holidays fall on a Sunday, so the number of working days in Bavaria does not change: 253 without and 253 with regional holidays.

Saxony and Thuringia: Corpus Christi in certain municipalities

Saxony counts Corpus Christi as a public holiday only in the areas the state interior ministry designates by ordinance (§ 1(1) SächsSFG). The 1993 ordinance lists 25 municipalities in the former districts of Bautzen, Hoyerswerda and Kamenz, including Crostwitz, Panschwitz-Kuckau and Wittichenau. If one of them has since become part of another municipality, the holiday applies only in its former area (§ 1 FronleichnamsVO).

Thuringia allows its ministry to set Corpus Christi by ordinance for municipalities with a predominantly Catholic population (§ 2(2) ThürFGtG). Until that happens, the day remains a holiday where it was observed as one in 1994 (§ 10(1) ThürFGtG). No such ordinance existed in 2011; the interior ministry then named 93 municipalities in the Eichsfeld district, 7 in Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis and 6 in Wartburgkreis.

In both states, Corpus Christi 2027 is a Thursday. For a site in one of those municipalities the day is off, for the rest of the state it is a working day. In Saxony, the working days calculator therefore counts 1 working day for May 27, 2027, and 0 with regionale=true.

Which place counts

For employees, the holidays at the place of work count, not those at their home or at the company's head office. Someone who lives in Leipzig and works in Crostwitz has Corpus Christi off; someone who lives in Crostwitz and works in Leipzig does not. People who work only from home follow the holidays where they live, because that is then their place of work. Those who work at changing locations, such as field staff, follow the place where they work on the day in question.

For tax purposes, the law says it directly: public holidays are determined by the rules at the place of work (§ 3b(2) sentence 4 of the Income Tax Act, EStG). Premiums under a collective agreement may use a different reference point. For the public sector agreement of the states (TV-L), the Federal Labor Court (BAG) looks at the regular place of work: an employee from North Rhine-Westphalia who attended a training course in Hesse on All Saints' Day 2021 received the holiday premium, even though All Saints' Day is not a holiday in Hesse (BAG, August 1, 2024, 6 AZR 38/24).

A decision on a filing deadline shows how precisely the place matters. An appeal against the denial of leave to appeal had to reach the BAG in Erfurt by June 23, 2011. That day was Corpus Christi, a holiday in North Rhine-Westphalia but not in Erfurt. The appeal arrived by fax one day later and was inadmissible (BAG, August 24, 2011, 8 AZN 808/11).

Payroll and premiums

If a regional holiday falls on a working day, employees at the place concerned are treated as on any other public holiday. Working time lost is paid (§ 2(1) of the Continued Remuneration Act, EFZG), and they may only work if an exception to the ban on work on Sundays and public holidays applies (§ 9 of the Working Hours Act, ArbZG). For colleagues at a site without the holiday, it is a normal working day.

Anyone who works on a public holiday can receive premiums of up to 125 percent of base pay tax-free, and up to 50 percent on a Sunday. If the holiday falls on a Sunday, as Assumption Day does in 2027, the holiday rate applies; the two rates are not added together (§ 3b(1) nos. 2 and 3 EStG).

With base pay of 20.00 euros an hour, up to 25.00 euros per hour are tax-free on August 15, 2027, in a municipality with the holiday. In a neighboring municipality without it, only the Sunday premium applies, up to 10.00 euros. The rates and the limits for tax and social security are in the tax-free premiums for Sunday, holiday and night work dataset.

If a night shift starts before midnight, work from midnight to 4 a.m. on the following day still counts as holiday work (§ 3b(3) no. 2 EStG). That matters for shift operations at a site with a regional holiday the night after. For social security, the premiums remain contribution-free only as long as base pay does not exceed 25.00 euros an hour (§ 1(1) sentence 1 no. 1 of the Social Insurance Remuneration Ordinance, SvEV).

How to model regional holidays in an HR system

• Maintain holidays per site, not per state: each site has a state and a municipality, plus a note on whether Corpus Christi, Assumption Day or the Peace Festival applies there.
• For remote employees, store the place whose holidays apply; for field staff and assignments, record the place of work for each day.
• Review municipality lists regularly: Bavaria redetermines them after each census, most recently with effect from 2025. In Saxony, after a merger the holiday only applies in the former municipality's area.
• In the working days calculator, set regionale=true only for sites in the area concerned. Without the parameter, it deducts statewide holidays only.
• Figures for 2027: Saxony has 255 working days without Corpus Christi and 254 with it, Thuringia 255 and 254.
• Do not forget holidays on a Sunday: they cost no working day, but they change the premiums. The API's holiday list includes them with the weekday.

Common mistakes

• Maintaining holidays by head office instead of by each employee's place of work.
• Applying Assumption Day to all of Bavaria, although it is not a holiday in 348 municipalities.
• Applying Corpus Christi to all of Saxony or Thuringia, or leaving it out entirely.
• Still using a Bavarian municipality list from before 2025, although eight municipalities changed after the 2022 census.
• Overlooking a holiday that falls on a Sunday when calculating premiums. The tax-free limit then follows the holiday rate, not the Sunday rate.

Query regional holidays via the API

$ curl "https://api.quellenkontor.dev/v1/hr/feiertage?jahr=2027&land=SN" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $QK_KEY"

# Excerpt of the response
{
  "land": "SN",
  "anzahl": 12,
  "anzahl_landesweit_montag_bis_freitag": 6,
  "feiertage": [
    {
      "datum": "2027-05-27",
      "id": "fronleichnam",
      "name": "Fronleichnam",
      "wochentag": "Donnerstag",
      "regional": true,
      "regional_hinweis": "nur in einzelnen Gemeinden im Landkreis Bautzen (sorbisches Siedlungsgebiet)",
      "sonntag": false
    }
  ]
}

What the API provides and what you decide

The API flags regional holidays; the decision for each site stays with you. With land, hr_feiertage returns all public holidays of a state. Regional ones carry regional: true and the area in regional_hinweis, in German. anzahl includes them, anzahl_landesweit_montag_bis_freitag does not. Without land, each holiday appears once, with the states in laender and laender_regional.

A practical approach for HR software: fetch the holidays for each state once a year and store them, switch regional holidays on per site with a flag, and query working days with regionale set to match the site. That keeps the decision about which site is affected in one place.

All fields and their types are in the public holidays reference. Brandenburg counts Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday as public holidays, and the API marks them with sonntag: true because they always fall on a Sunday.

The review checks the state public holiday laws in rotation, four states a week, and searches every week for newly adopted one-off holidays. The review process has the details.