Is Christmas Eve a Bank Holiday?

Most of us will be looking forward to a Christmas break, and many people will be asking, ‘Is Christmas Eve a Bank Holiday?’

The short answer is ‘No’, Christmas Eve is not a bank holiday.

Indeed, it will be a normal working day, but many employers may encourage staff to leave early.

You may find that if you are rushing to complete some last-minute Christmas shopping that many shops and even pubs and restaurants will close early as shoppers head home.

There’s no doubt that Christmas Eve is part of the festive build-up and for many people, is the start of Christmas celebrations.

Handing out Christmas Eve boxes

There’s also the growing trend of families handing out Christmas Eve boxes which is rapidly becoming a new Christmas Eve tradition.

For those families with small children – and also not-so-small children – they may be leaving treats out for Santa Claus and his reindeer, Rudolph.

So, if you are looking to take time off over Christmas, it’s important that you know when the bank holidays are.

Dates for UK Bank Holidays

To help discover whether Christmas Eve is a Bank Holiday for the next few years, then this page on the .gov site for the UK’s public holidays will help:

If a bank holiday is on a weekend, a ‘substitute’ weekday becomes a bank holiday, normally the following Monday.

Do employers have to give staff time off at Christmas?

While bank holidays like those listed above are national fixtures, the law might surprise you because employers are not legally required to give you paid time off for bank holidays.

Instead, they can choose to include these days as part of your statutory annual leave entitlement, which totals 5.6 weeks (or up to 28 days) of paid holiday per year for most workers.

This means your Christmas break could count towards your holiday allowance if your employer opts in. You should check your employment contract to confirm.

What the law says

Under UK employment law, bank holidays (which includes Christmas Day, 25 December, and Boxing Day, 26 December) are not automatically “extra” paid days off. Here’s what you need to know:

• No automatic day off: Your employer doesn’t have to close the office or let you skip work. If they require you to be on duty, you must go in, unless your employment contract states otherwise
• Holiday pay basics: You’re entitled to paid annual leave, but bank holidays can be bundled into that pot. For example, if your workplace treats Christmas as part of your 28 days, you’ll still get paid for it as holiday pay, not as a separate bonus
• Working on a Bank Holiday: There’s no statutory right to premium pay (like time-and-a-half) for shifts on Christmas Day. Any enhanced rates or “lieu days” (time off in lieu) are down to your contract, collective agreements, or industry norms, common in retail or hospitality, but not guaranteed.

Who gets what time off?

Entitlements are prorated based on your hours, so no one misses out:

• Full-time workers: At least 28 days’ paid leave, which may include up to eight bank holidays if your employer chooses
• Part-time staff: Scaled down proportionally, so if you work three days a week, or 16.8 days total – Use the GOV.UK holiday calculator for exact answers
• Irregular or zero-hours contracts: Leave accrues based on hours worked which means it’s usually averaged over 52 weeks
• Agency or casual workers: Same 5.6 weeks’ entitlement, paid out as you go.

There’s more information about holiday entitlement rights on the .gov website.

Is Boxing Day a bank holiday?

The government makes clear with its legislation about bank holidays and for anybody asking, ‘Is Boxing Day a Bank Holiday?’, then this is the explanation you need.

Basically, the government says that if a bank holiday falls on a weekend, then a day in the week can be substituted as the bank holiday. This will normally be the Monday following the traditional bank holiday.

This means that not only do we get Christmas Day off as a bank holiday because it falls on a Friday.

It also means that we get the Saturday off because it’s the weekend, and we also get the following Monday off because that’s when the bank holiday has been transferred to.

Child benefit payments at Christmas

Along with knowing when the bank holiday dates are, many people also want to know when their child benefit payments will be received.

These payments help provide financial support to guardians and parents and the government has revealed when they will be paid.

Usually, payments are made every four weeks on either a Monday or a Tuesday.

This year, the festivities mean that the usual pattern will be disrupted.

And if you are receiving child benefit, you will need to know when you will receive the payment over Christmas and New Year.