Public holidays in Finland

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All official holidays in Finland are established by acts of Parliament. The official holidays can be divided into Christian and non-Christian holidays. The main Christian holidays are Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension day, Pentecost and All Saints' Day. The non-christian holidays are New Year's Day, May Day and Midsummer Day.

In addition to this all Sundays are official holidays but they are not as important as the special holidays. The names of the Sundays follow the liturgical calendar and they can be categorized as Christian holidays. When the standard working week in Finland was reduced to 40 hours by an act of Parliament it also meant that all Saturdays became a sort of de facto public holidays, though not official ones. Easter Sunday and Pentecost are Sundays that form part of a main holiday and they are preceded by a kind of special Saturdays.

Several Christian holidays traditionally falling on working days or on fixed dates have been moved to Saturdays and Sundays. In 1955, Midsummer day was moved to the Saturday following June 19, the feast of the Annunciation to the Sunday following 21 March (or, if this coincides with Easter or with Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Palm Sunday), and All Saints' Day to the Saturday following 30 October. More holidays were moved in 1973: Epiphany to the Saturday following January 5 and Ascension Day to the Saturday before the traditional Thursday, but these revisions were reversed in 1991.

[edit] Tradition

Celebrating major holidays starts early in Finland. Christmas Eve and Midsummer Eve might very well be the single most important holidays during the entire year for Finns. Surprisingly they are not official holidays, they are however de facto full holidays. They hold this de facto status partly due to legislation but also due to the fact that most employment contracts provides for these days as full holidays. A number of the less important main holidays are also preceded by de facto half days, meaning that they only are half working days or school days. These are Epiphany Eve, Maundy Thursday, the day before May Day, the day before Ascension Day, the day before All Saints' Day, and New Year's Eve.

The Finnish calendar also provides for special flag days. A day's status as a flag day has no formal link with an eventual status as an official or as a de facto holiday.

Finland has an official National Day, December 6. Some minor observances are also denoted in the Finnish calendar, though they have not been judged worthy of either holiday or flag day status.


Date	English Name	Local Name	Remarks
January 1	New Year's Day	Uudenvuodenpäivä
January 6	Epiphany	Loppiainen
Moveable Friday	Good Friday	Pitkäperjantai	The Friday before Easter Sunday
Moveable Sunday	Easter Sunday	Pääsiäispäivä
Moveable Monday	Easter Monday	2. Pääsiäispäivä	The day after Easter Sunday
May 1	May Day	Vappu	See Walpurgis Night
Moveable Thursday	Ascension Day	Helatorstai	39 days after Easter Sunday
Moveable Sunday	Pentecost	Helluntaipäivä	49 days after Easter Sunday
Friday between June 19 and June 25	Midsummer Eve	Juhannusaatto	Non official - however a de facto full holiday
Saturday between June 20 and June 26	Midsummer Day	Juhannuspäivä	Moved from June 24
Saturday between October 31 and November 6	All Saints' Day	Pyhäinpäivä	Moved from November 1
December 6	Independence Day	Itsenäisyyspäivä
December 24	Christmas Eve	Jouluaatto	Non official - however a de facto full holiday
December 25	Christmas Day	Joulupäivä
December 26	St Stephen's Day	2. Joulupäivä or Tapaninpäivä
All Sundays			Official holidays - names follow the Liturgical year