Working days 2026 in Germany: federal state, public holidays, vacation, bridge days

Germany lands somewhere between 252 and 254 working days in 2026 - depending on which federal state you plan in. Most calculators stop at the number. This one shows the year as a 12-month grid: every day colour-coded, every state-level holiday marked, vacation and the strongest bridge days plannable directly - one click applies the optimal suggestions, or you plan the calendar yourself.

How many working days does 2026 have in Germany?

2026 is not a leap year, so the calendar carries 365 days. 104 of those are weekend days (52 Saturdays + 52 Sundays), leaving 261 weekdays. From those, each federal state subtracts only the public holidays that fall Monday through Friday - weekend holidays do not double-dip. Across all 16 states, the 2026 spread runs from 252 (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) through 253 (Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt) up to 254 (Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia). Brandenburg lands at 254 despite carrying 12 statewide holidays - Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday and Reformation Day all fall on a weekend in 2026.

The math step by step, using Bavaria 2026:

1. 365 days in the calendar year.
2. − 104 weekend days (52 Saturdays + 52 Sundays).
3. − 9 weekday holidays (3 of Bavaria's 12 statewide holidays land on a Saturday or Sunday in 2026 and are not double-counted).
4. = 252 available workdays.
5. − 30 planned vacation days (marked in the calendar) = 222 working days.

Switch to Berlin with 25 vacation: 254 − 25 = 229 working days. Weekends stay constant across all states - only the holiday layer in the calendar shifts. Sick days are deliberately not subtracted here - more on that in the hourly-rate section below.

How many public holidays does my federal state have in 2026?

The range in 2026 runs from 10 (Berlin) up to 12 (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Saarland). Nine holidays are observed in all 16 states: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, German Unity Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The rest varies state by state.

Movable feasts pivot off Easter Sunday; Spencer's algorithm computes them. Municipality-only holidays like the Augsburg Peace Festival or Assumption Day in Bavarian Catholic municipalities are outside the federal-state model.

What does the 21.67 working days per month figure mean?

21.67 is a common DACH planning shortcut for a standard work month: 260 working days per year divided by 12. The number is independent of vacation and sick planning and can serve as a comparison value in hourly-rate models, day-rate negotiations and HR-side capacity planning. Next to it, the calculator shows the calendar variant (available workdays / 12) - for Bavaria 2026 that is 252 / 12 = 21.00.

The gap between 21.67 and 21.00 sounds small but compounds: a flat-monthly contract priced at 21.67 days implies 0.67 extra days each month, about 8 days a Bavarian freelancer would not bill against a calendar-true count. The 21.67 figure is conservative - it absorbs state-by-state variance and holds when 2027 or 2028 put more holidays on weekdays. For freelancers it can be a rate-negotiation anchor, not a legal default. For your own year-plan, the calendar value is closer to reality.

How does vacation affect the hourly rate?

Every vacation day is missing from the billable base. Holding the target salary steady means the hourly rate has to go up. Rule of thumb for Bavaria 2026 (60,000 EUR gross target, 8 hours per day, 75 percent utilisation): each additional vacation day costs about 0.20 EUR per hour. Going from 25 to 30 vacation days adds about 1 EUR per hour to keep the same annual outcome.

Sick days are deliberately not subtracted in this tool. They aren't really plannable (that's why they aren't "vacation"), and for employees they are covered by paid sick leave. Freelancers who want to bake a sick-day buffer into their hourly rate enter it directly in the Hourly Rate Calculator. The button under the calendar result hands over your planned working days; you add your personal sick-day assumption there - and see the impact on the hourly rate immediately.

Which data does the calculator use and where does it come from?

The calculator covers 2025, 2026 and 2027. Movable feasts use Spencer's algorithm (Easter Sunday); fixed-date holidays come from the BMAS list and the state interior-ministry tables. The calculation runs locally on your device - your inputs never leave the browser.

What is in the model and what is not:

• Federal-state holidays: all 16 states with their 2026-specific dates.
• Movable feasts: computed (Easter Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Pentecost Sunday, Corpus Christi, Day of Repentance and Prayer).
• Weekend hits: flagged with a (weekend) tag, but not double-subtracted from the workday pool.
• Local-municipality holidays: not included (Augsburg Peace Festival, Assumption Day in Bavarian Catholic municipalities, Corpus Christi sub-cases in Saxony and Thuringia).
• Bridge days and company holidays: company-specific, not subtracted.

For plans that span two or more federal states, or if your municipality carries local rules, double-check with your accountant before signing the year's plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which 2026 public holidays fall on a weekend?

Two holidays land on a Saturday across all 16 states in 2026: German Unity Day (03.10.) and Boxing Day (26.12.). Other weekend hits depend on the state - examples include International Women's Day (08.03., Sunday) in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, All Saints' Day (01.11., Sunday) in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, Reformation Day (31.10., Saturday) in the nine Reformation states, Assumption Day (15.08., Saturday) in Saarland, World Children's Day (20.09., Sunday) in Thuringia, plus Brandenburg's Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday. The calendar grid above tags every hit for the chosen state with (weekend) and reduces opacity.

Why does Bavaria have more public holidays than Berlin?

The public-holiday list is set at federal-state level. On top of the nine holidays observed in all states, Bavaria recognises Epiphany, Corpus Christi and All Saints' Day statewide - 12 statewide holidays in total. Berlin added International Women's Day (08.03.) in 2019 but stops at 10. Assumption Day applies in Bavaria only in municipalities with a mostly Catholic population and is not part of the federal-state model.

When is Corpus Christi in 2026 and where is it a public holiday?

Corpus Christi falls on Thursday, 04.06.2026 - 60 days after Easter Sunday. It is a statewide statutory holiday in six states: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. In Saxony and Thuringia, it applies only in individual municipalities with a mostly Catholic population - the calculator's federal-state model does not include those, because there is no municipality selector.