Congress designates a holiday by statute
A federal holiday exists because Congress passed a law naming it, not because a date "feels" like a holiday. The current list numbers 11, and it can only grow or change through further legislation — which is exactly how Juneteenth became the most recent addition, signed into law in 2021 as the Office of Personnel Management explains.
Each holiday is defined one of two ways: tied to a fixed calendar date, or tied to a specific weekday in a specific month.
- Fixed-date holidays: New Year's Day (January 1), Juneteenth (June 19), Independence Day (July 4), Veterans Day (November 11), Christmas Day (December 25)
- Weekday-based holidays: Martin Luther King Jr. Day (third Monday in January), Washington's Birthday (third Monday in February), Memorial Day (last Monday in May), Labor Day (first Monday in September), Columbus Day (second Monday in October), Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November)
Washington's Birthday is worth pausing on by name, because it's the one entry on the list that most people call something else. The statute and every federal calendar refer to it as Washington's Birthday; "Presidents Day" is the popular name that stuck in common usage and in most retail advertising, but it has never been the legal title of the federal holiday, as both OPM and USAGov list it. If a calendar or a store sign says "Presidents Day," it's describing the same third-Monday-in-February holiday that the government still calls Washington's Birthday.
The weekday-based group is why the calendar looks different every year. Memorial Day isn't "May 30" the way Independence Day is "July 4" — it's whatever Monday happens to be last in May, which shifts the actual date by as much as a week from one year to the next. The same is true for Labor Day, Columbus Day, MLK Day and Washington's Birthday.
This matters for a very practical reason: there is no single answer to "is [date] a holiday?" that holds across years. Someone asking whether February 18 falls on a holiday needs to know which year they mean, then check that year's table — because in one year the third Monday in February might be the 16th, and in another it might be the 18th or the 20th. The only reliable method is to consult a year-specific list, such as the one the U.S. Embassy publishes for 2026, rather than memorizing a date and assuming it repeats. So a question like "Is February 18, 2026 a holiday?" has no answer independent of the year-specific table — it depends entirely on which Monday in that particular February is the third one, and the only way to know is to look it up rather than guess from a prior year's pattern.
What happens when a fixed-date holiday lands on a weekend
Federal offices don't simply stay open when a holiday like July 4 or Christmas falls on a Saturday or Sunday — the observance shifts to a weekday instead. The rule, applied by the federal government under OPM's holiday regulations, is straightforward:
- If the holiday falls on a Saturday, it is observed the preceding Friday.
- If the holiday falls on a Sunday, it is observed the following Monday.
- Federal employees receive their paid day off on whichever day is actually observed, not on the calendar date itself.
- Federal offices and federal courts follow the observed date, not the calendar date — a distinction the Second Circuit's court calendar also reflects for filing deadlines.
This is the piece that trips people up most often. If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, the government doesn't close on the 25th and reopen the 26th as if nothing happened — it closes on Monday the 26th, because that's the day the holiday is legally observed. Anyone with a filing deadline, a court date, or a government appointment near a fixed-date holiday needs to check the observed date for that specific year, not just count from the calendar date they already know.
Weekday-based holidays never need this adjustment, since "the third Monday in January" is by definition always a Monday. The in-lieu-of rule only applies to the fixed-date holidays: New Year's Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Veterans Day, and Christmas Day. Once a reader understands this one rule, it applies to every future year without needing a new explanation — only a new table to plug the rule into.
Federal, state, and local schedules don't always match
A day can be a state holiday without being a federal one, and the reverse also happens — so "is X closed today" depends on which government runs X. The 11-day federal list, laid out by USAGov, governs federal offices, federal courts, the U.S. Postal Service, and federal employee pay. It does not automatically govern state agencies, county offices, city halls, or public schools.
| Level | Sets its own holiday list? | Example of a mismatch |
|---|---|---|
| Federal | Yes — by Act of Congress | Columbus Day is federal; some states substitute Indigenous Peoples' Day instead |
| State | Yes — by state legislature | Some states add holidays like Patriots' Day or a state-specific founding day that the federal list omits |
| Local/municipal | Yes — by city or county ordinance | A city government may close for a local observance while state and federal offices stay open |
| Private employer | No statutory list — set by internal policy | May close for none, some, or all federal holidays, plus days not on any government list |
The practical effect: a state department of motor vehicles, a county recorder's office, or a state unemployment agency might close on a day when federal courts and the U.S. Postal Service remain open, or the other way around. Someone with a deadline involving a state licensing board or a state tax office should check that state's own holiday calendar separately from the federal list — the federal designation tells you nothing about whether the state office down the street is open. The method is the same no matter which state is involved: find that state's official personnel or administrative-office holiday page, and treat it as a separate list from the federal one rather than assuming the two overlap completely.
There's a related wrinkle worth naming here: Inauguration Day, observed every four years on January 20 following a presidential election, is listed by OPM as a paid holiday only for federal employees working in the Washington, D.C. area, not nationwide. It illustrates the same principle running through this whole section — a holiday's reach is exactly as wide as the statute or regulation that created it, no wider. A D.C.-area federal employee gets the day off; a federal employee in another state does not, and neither does a state or private-sector worker anywhere.
Private employers are not required to give federal holidays off
A private company can stay open on every one of the 11 federal holidays, and it isn't breaking any law by doing so. Federal holiday statutes bind federal government offices and federal employee pay; they don't create an entitlement for people working in the private sector. Whether an employee gets Labor Day or Christmas off is a matter of that employer's own policy, not federal law — a distinction USAGov and OPM both frame around federal employment specifically, not private payrolls.
This is also the answer to a common point of confusion: people often hear "12 paid holidays a year" and assume it maps onto the 11 federal holidays, then wonder where the twelfth came from. The 11-day count is the fixed federal statutory list. The 12-day figure that shows up in many workplace policies is simply a typical employer schedule — companies often add a floating holiday, a half-day, or a locally observed day on top of the federal 11, and the count can also tick up in a year that includes an Inauguration Day for employees near D.C. There is no legal requirement behind the 12; it reflects common practice, described in guides aimed at employers such as Intuit QuickBooks' overview for small businesses, not a rule any private employer must follow.
What typically closes on federal holidays tends to be tied to institutions that run on federal or government-linked schedules rather than ordinary retail hours:
- Federal offices and federal courts
- The U.S. Postal Service
- Banks and credit unions, many of which build their closure calendars around the same federal holiday dates
- Public schools, in many but not all districts
- Stock markets, which set their own holiday calendars that overlap with but aren't identical to the federal list
Retail stores, restaurants, and most private-sector workplaces make their own call, and many stay open on federal holidays precisely because there's no requirement not to. An employee who wants to know whether they'll get a specific day off has to check their own employer's policy — the federal list only tells you what the government itself is doing that day, not what any given private business will do.
To find the next holiday coming up, and to check any specific date against the correct year's table rather than a memorized pattern, go to a year-specific list — such as the 2026 federal holiday list — and read off the observed date directly, then separately confirm your own state's or employer's calendar before assuming it matches.