Portugal Public Holidays 2026 — Check National, Regional and Municipal Dates

The Portugal Holidays Checker is a free date tool that answers one simple question: is this day a public holiday in Portugal? Pick a region, browse the whole calendar month by month, or type an exact date such as 2026-04-10 and get an instant answer together with the name and scope of the holiday.

Portugal organises its feriados in three layers. There are 13 national holidays — ten fixed-date days such as Dia da Liberdade on 25 April, Restauração da Independência on 1 December and Natal on 25 December, plus three movable feasts (Sexta-feira Santa, Páscoa and Corpo de Deus) whose dates travel with Easter. Carnaval is a facultative day rather than a national holiday: whether you get it off depends on your employer or collective agreement. On top of that, the major cities and the autonomous regions add regional holidays: Santo António in Lisbon, São João in Porto, Dia da Autonomia on 1 July in Madeira and Segunda-feira do Espírito Santo in the Azores. Finally, every câmara municipal may grant one or two municipal holidays for the local parish (freguesia).

The result is a calendar of roughly 13 to 14 paid holidays for most workers: 13 national days, or 13 plus one municipal day, with the regional day added where it applies. Use this checker before booking leave, running payroll, scheduling deliveries or planning a wedding — the difference between an ordinary Tuesday and Carnaval Tuesday matters.

The engine behind this tool is a hand-checked table of the official 2026 Portuguese holiday calendar, stored as simple records — one per holiday — with a fixed date in YYYY-MM-DD format, a month number for filtering, a localised name and a scope tag (national, regional or facultative). When you press the button, the script either looks up the exact date you typed or filters the records by region and month, then prints the matching rows. Nothing is sent to a server; everything runs in your browser.

Portugal's 13 national holidays split into two families. The ten fixed-date holidays fall on the same calendar day every year. The three movable holidays are pinned to Easter, which the Church computes each year with the traditional computus — the algorithm that places Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. For 2026 that computation gives Easter Sunday on 5 April, and every movable feast follows from it, as the tables below show.

The arithmetic of the movable days is deterministic once Easter is known: Carnaval sits exactly 47 days before Easter (Shrove Tuesday), Sexta-feira Santa two days before, and Corpo de Deus 60 days after Easter. In the Azores the regional holiday follows the same logic — Segunda-feira do Espírito Santo is the Monday after Pentecost, i.e. Easter + 50 days.

Regional days are simpler: Santo António always falls on 13 June (a Saturday in 2026), São João on 24 June (a Wednesday in 2026) and Madeira's Dia da Autonomia on 1 July (a Wednesday in 2026). Municipal holidays are chosen by each câmara municipal and published in the Diário da República, which is why this tool deliberately leaves them out — check with your local council for the day that applies to your freguesia.

All 13 national holidays with their 2026 weekdays. Movable days are marked with an asterisk (*).

National total: 13 holidays. Carnaval (17 February 2026) is a facultative day, not a national holiday, and is therefore not counted here; whether you get it off depends on your employer or collective agreement. Add the regional day of your region and the municipal day of your concelho for a complete personal calendar.

On these dates the 13 national holidays are joined by the region's own day, giving workers there 14 public holidays before any municipal day is counted. Municipal and freguesia holidays are set separately by each câmara municipal.

1. Choose your region: "National" lists the 13 country-wide holidays, while Lisbon, Porto, Madeira and Azores add that region's own day on top.
2. Optionally pick a month (1–12) to narrow the list — for example June shows Portugal Day, Corpo de Deus and both saints' festivals.
3. Or type an exact date in YYYY-MM-DD format, such as 2026-04-10, to ask: is this specific day a holiday?
4. Press the "Check holidays" button (or hit Enter in the date field) and read the result: matching dates appear with their name and scope.
5. Verify anything business-critical against the Diário da República or your câmara municipal, because municipal and freguesia days are not included here.

How are Portugal's movable holidays calculated?

They all hang on Easter, which the Church fixes each year with the computus — the first Sunday after the spring full moon. In 2026 Easter is 5 April, so Carnaval = Easter − 47 = 17 February, Sexta-feira Santa = 3 April, and Corpo de Deus = Easter + 60 = 4 June.

How many public holidays does Portugal have?

Thirteen are national and mandatory (10 fixed + 3 movable), a set fully in force again since 2016. Because most councils add one municipal day, a typical worker enjoys about 14 paid holidays per year, plus the regional day in Lisbon, Porto, Madeira or the Azores.

What is the difference between national, regional and municipal holidays?

National days apply everywhere in the country; regional days (Santo António in Lisbon, São João in Porto, 1 July in Madeira, Whit Monday in the Azores) apply only within that region; municipal days are set by each câmara municipal, usually for the local saint or a founding date, and apply only in that concelho.

Does Madeira have extra holidays?

Yes — besides the 13 national days, Madeira keeps the Dia da Autonomia on 1 July (a Wednesday in 2026) and is famous for its Carnival and Easter celebrations; this checker lists the statutory 1 July regional day.

Does the Azores have extra holidays?

Yes — the Azores observes the Segunda-feira do Espírito Santo (Whit Monday, 25 May 2026), which doubles as the Dia da Região Autónoma dos Açores. It lands exactly 50 days after Easter.

Who decides municipal holidays?

Each câmara municipal may fix its own days — typically the local patron saint or an founding date — and publishes them in the Diário da República. These parish-level (freguesia) days are deliberately excluded from this tool, so ask your local council for the exact date.

Squeeze the most out of the 2026 calendar by studying the weekdays before you book leave. New Year's Day falls on a Thursday, so taking Friday 2 January off yields a four-day opening weekend; Labour Day and Christmas Day both fall on Fridays, giving natural long weekends on 1–3 May and 25–27 December. Freedom Day (25 April) lands on a Saturday in 2026, so it is lost for bridge purposes — plan around it. If you work in Lisbon or Porto, remember that June is a golden month: Santo António (Saturday 13 June) and São João (Wednesday 24 June) sit two weeks apart, and pairing 24 June with annual leave covers the popular São João festivals. Travellers should book trains and hotels months ahead for those festivals and for Easter week, when Madeira and the Algarve fill up quickly. Always double-check the one municipal holiday of your own concelho — a closed câmara, silent cranes and shut pharmacies on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday usually mean you have found it. Payroll teams should treat the calendar as 13 national days plus one municipal day (≈14 paid holidays) and add the regional day where the employee works in Lisbon, Porto, Madeira or the Azores. When a national holiday falls on a Sunday, it is not shifted to the following Monday — the date itself is the holiday — so build any bridge strategy around the actual weekday shown by this checker rather than the calendar number. Employers may not swap holidays for other days without a written agreement, so the table below is exactly what your contract refers to. Parents and students should note that school calendars observe the same national set plus the municipal day, while most shopping centres stay open on holidays and only truly shut on 1 January and 25 December. Finally, if you schedule meetings with Spanish or German colleagues, cross-check their calendars too — outside Easter week the movable feasts rarely coincide across borders.