Is a public holiday on a Saturday or rest day made up for?

In 2027, 1 May and 25 December fall on a Saturday, and both are national public holidays whose date no autonomous community can change. Anyone who works Monday to Friday would lose those two holidays unless someone makes them up. Since May 2026, the National High Court (Audiencia Nacional) has handed down several judgments requiring employers to give these workers another day off when a public holiday coincides with their Saturday rest day, following a line of case law that the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) was already applying to shift workers and people whose rest day falls midweek. The judgments can be appealed, and the Supreme Court has not yet revisited the Saturday question under its current case law.

Quick answer

Situation	Must the public holiday be made up?
You work Monday to Friday and the holiday falls on a Saturday	Yes, according to the National High Court (2026, open to appeal). One additional day off.
You work shifts and your rest day coincides with a public holiday	Yes, unless the shift calendar already makes up for it. Supreme Court, since 2022.
You work Monday to Sunday with a fixed rest day midweek	Yes. Supreme Court, Zara case (2025).
The public holiday falls on a Sunday	The day off moves to Monday, unless the region replaces it with another holiday.
You work on the public holiday	The hours paid with a supplement of at least 75%, or equivalent time off, which the Supreme Court also increases by 75%.
The holiday falls during annual leave counted in calendar days	No, according to the National High Court (September 2026, open to appeal).

Why the holiday is not lost when it falls on your rest day

The Workers’ Statute (Estatuto de los Trabajadores) regulates two separate kinds of rest. Article 37.1 guarantees an uninterrupted minimum weekly rest of a day and a half, which as a general rule covers Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Article 37.2 provides for up to 14 public holidays a year, which are “paid and not to be worked back”, two of them local. When a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the same article moves the day off to the following Monday.

The law does not say what happens when a public holiday coincides with a Saturday or with the day off of someone who works shifts. The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court has filled that gap step by step:

• Plenary judgment 570/2022 of 22 June (contact centre) recognised that shift workers whose rest days are not fixed are entitled to weekly rest that does not overlap with public holidays, and to compensation when it does.
• Judgment 372/2025 of 30 April (Zara) extended this to staff who work Monday to Sunday with a fixed rest day midweek: if that day is a public holiday, they are entitled to another day off, “without prejudice to completion of the annual working hours”.
• Judgment 265/2026 of 11 March applied the 2022 case law to drivers with rotating rest days at a Galician passenger transport company and stressed the “separate treatment of public holidays”: weekly rest protects health, while public holidays mark events of civic or religious significance, and one cannot absorb the other.

If someone who rests midweek loses the public holiday, they end the year with fewer days off than someone who rests on Sundays, whose holiday moves to the Monday. The Supreme Court sees no justification for that difference.

What the National High Court has decided about Saturdays

The Supreme Court had dealt with cases of rotating or midweek rest days. The Saturday of someone working Monday to Friday was left out, and a 1993 judgment of the Supreme Court itself (the Ensidesa case) had refused that compensation. In 2026 the National High Court extended the case law to Saturdays:

• SAN 88/2026 of 19 May (contact centre sector). It declared unlawful the widespread practice of not making up a public holiday that coincides with the Saturday rest day of people who work Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday. It recognised an additional day of rest, to be taken within a period of no more than 14 days, and compensation for holidays not enjoyed within the limitation period.
• SAN 90/2026 of 19 May (vehicle leasing company). The company argued that its staff worked between 134 and 152 fewer hours a year than the collective agreement requires, and it still had to give the day.
• SAN 128/2026 and 130/2026, handed down in July, applied the same case law to a technology company and a publishing house. The publisher was also ordered to redo its 2026 calendars to include the compensatory days.
• SAN 151/2026 of 21 September (banking sector). It recognised compensation between April and September, when staff have Saturdays and Sundays off. From October to March, it did not. Those Saturdays are not worked because their hours have been spread across other days of the year, and in the court’s view that does not make them rest days.

The most obvious objection was that the minimum weekly rest under the Workers’ Statute is a day and a half, so Saturday morning would be an extra granted by the company rather than weekly rest. The National High Court rejected this in SAN 90/2026: if the company gives two days of rest, the whole of Saturday is enjoyed as weekly rest, and a longer rest period does not remove the right to the public holiday that coincides with it.

Two judgments went the other way. In SAN 89/2026 of 19 May, the court dismissed a claim by shift workers because their calendar had been drawn up already taking account of annual leave and the 14 public holidays, and their rest days far exceeded those of someone working Monday to Friday. On the same reasoning, in SAN 104/2026 of 4 June it dismissed the claim brought by air traffic controllers, who have 48 calendar days of annual leave.

All of these judgments are open to a cassation appeal. Professor Ignasi Beltrán de Heredia, who agrees with the National High Court’s approach, points out in his analysis that we will have to wait and see whether the Supreme Court endorses it. In the meantime, a company that does not make up these days is exposed to claims backed by these judgments, and to having to grant the days retroactively.

Can the compensatory day be replaced by the 75% supplement?

In principle, no. Article 47 of Royal Decree 2001/1983 provides that, where exceptionally the public holiday or weekly rest cannot be taken, the company must pay the hours worked that day with a supplement of at least 75%, unless it gives compensatory rest. That rule is designed for people who work on the holiday.

In SAN 90/2026 the union also asked for that supplement for Saturday holidays. The National High Court refused: if the Saturday coincides with the rest day, nobody has worked on that holiday and there are no hours to pay the supplement on. What is owed is a day of rest.

Not just any day off the company already grants will do, either. In SAN 130/2026 the publisher argued that its calendar already included a “bridge” day linking a holiday to the weekend, three Fridays to be taken at the employee’s discretion and 24 and 31 December. The court did not accept this, because it had not been shown that those days were given in exchange for the Saturday holidays and because some of them were already required by the collective agreement. In SAN 128/2026, hours off at the employee’s discretion and extra days of annual leave did not count either, because they are different in nature from the day that has to be made up.

Public holidays falling on a Saturday in 2027

The national public holidays under article 45 of Royal Decree 2001/1983 that fall on a Saturday in 2027 are:

• Saturday 1 May 2027, Labour Day.
• Saturday 25 December 2027, Christmas Day.

They affect any company with staff who have Saturdays off, in every region. 15 August 2027 falls on a Sunday, and the day off will move to Monday 16 August except in regions that replace it with a holiday of their own. On top of these come the regional holidays and the two local holidays of each municipality, which may also fall on a Saturday.

There was already one case in 2026: 15 August, which fell on a Saturday. 1 November and 6 December fall on Sundays and, according to the 2026 public holiday calendar published in the BOE, several regions are moving the day off to Monday 2 November and Monday 7 December. The official list of public holidays for 2027 has not yet been published in the BOE (the 2026 list came out on 28 October 2025), although several regions have already approved their own.

What if the public holiday falls during your annual leave?

It depends on how the leave is counted. If it is counted in working days, the holiday does not count against your leave and you still get it.

If it is counted in calendar days, the National High Court has said there is no extra day. In SAN 147/2026 of 16 September, it dismissed the claim brought by UGT, joined by other unions, in the contact centre sector: the collective agreement sets 32 calendar days of leave, above the 30 in article 38 of the Workers’ Statute, and calendar days include public holidays and weekends. Beltrán de Heredia disagrees on this point and believes the Supreme Court should correct the approach, because if a public holiday is a separate form of rest when it coincides with weekly rest, it is hard to explain why it stops being one when it coincides with annual leave.

How to organise it in your company

The annual work calendar (art. 34.6 of the Workers’ Statute) is the natural place to deal with it, because national and regional holidays are known months in advance. For 2027:

1. Cross-check the public holidays against the rest days of each group of staff: Monday to Friday staff with Saturdays off, shift workers with rotating rest days, people with a fixed rest day midweek. 1 May and 25 December will certainly affect the first group; regional and local holidays depend on the workplace.
2. Set the compensatory day in the calendar itself, rather than waiting for someone to ask for it. The National High Court has taken the 14 days following the holiday as its benchmark. If a claim is brought, that calendar is the evidence the court found lacking in SAN 128/2026.
3. The collective agreement can change the answer. Some agreements regulate compensation, extend weekly rest or redistribute Saturday hours, as the banking agreement does.
4. On shift rotas, such as those in retail or hospitality, a weekly rest day that falls on a public holiday means the holiday must be given on another day, unless the calendar has already built the public holidays into the allocation of rest days, as in SAN 89/2026. Anyone who works on the holiday is entitled to compensatory rest or the minimum 75% supplement.

Part-time contracts are the least clear case. If a worker only works Monday to Wednesday and the public holiday falls on a Thursday, that Thursday is not strictly their weekly rest day, and none of these judgments resolves the point. It will come down to the working pattern agreed in the contract and what the collective agreement says about part-time staff.

If a claim arrives, the company will have to prove which days each person rested and when they took the compensatory day. The calendar records what was planned and the clock-ins in the working-time record record what actually happened, and the company must keep them for four years. A day off agreed verbally appears in neither.

How Cleverfy handles it

Cleverfy brings together each workplace’s work calendar, absences and working-time record, and the compensatory day is stored alongside the clock-ins.

When you set up a workplace’s calendar you choose the municipality, Cleverfy imports the national, regional and local public holidays, and you can see at a glance which ones fall on a Saturday. HR can add the day to each employee’s absence balance, with the reason and an expiry date, or record the absence directly on the agreed date. Employees see their public holidays and their balance in the mobile app and request the day through the usual approval flow.

In rotating shift templates you can specify that a shift coinciding with a public holiday is cancelled, and leave policies are configured in working days or calendar days according to your collective agreement. Each compensatory day is recorded with its reason, its approval and the date it was taken, which is what you will need to show if a claim arrives. You can see the rest in features.

Try Cleverfy free for 14 days → · See plans from €1.20/user →

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Legal note: this article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice. It is based on articles 34.6, 37, 38 and 59 of the Workers’ Statute, articles 45 and 47 of Royal Decree 2001/1983 and National High Court judgments that can be appealed before the Supreme Court. The applicable collective agreement may lay down different or more favourable rules.

Sources:

• Workers’ Statute, art. 37 (weekly rest and public holidays)
• Royal Decree 2001/1983, arts. 45 and 47 (public holidays and work on public holidays)
• Resolution of 17 October 2025, public holidays for 2026 (BOE)
• STS (Plenary) 570/2022 of 22 June, ROJ STS 2806/2022 (CENDOJ)
• STS 372/2025 of 30 April, ROJ STS 2062/2025 (CENDOJ)
• STS 265/2026 of 11 March, ROJ STS 1191/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 88/2026 of 19 May, ROJ SAN 1912/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 90/2026 of 19 May, ROJ SAN 1914/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 104/2026 of 4 June, ROJ SAN 2366/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 128/2026 of 10 July, ROJ SAN 3219/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 130/2026 of 13 July, ROJ SAN 3215/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 147/2026 of 16 September, ROJ SAN 3628/2026 (CENDOJ)
• SAN 151/2026 of 21 September (banking sector), pending publication in CENDOJ