Greece Public Holidays 2028
Greece keeps the same thirteen statutory dates in 2028, and nine of them are usable: 1 January, 25 March and 28 October land on a Saturday and Pascha on a Sunday, so four of the thirteen buy a Monday-to-Friday worker nothing. The year is unusual in two other ways. Orthodox Pascha and Gregorian Easter both fall on April 16 — the second coincidence in this four-year window — so the Greek, British and German Easter breaks overlap and the islands peak in mid-April. And Christmas is worth four days: the 25th is a Monday and the 26th a Tuesday, so Saturday 23 to Tuesday 26 closes the year with nothing asked of an employer.
At a glance
Greece has 13 official public holidays (13 days off) in 2028 and 5 long weekends; the longest break is Pascha (Apr 14 – 17, 4 days).
| Public holidays | 13 |
|---|---|
| Total days off | 13 |
| Longest break | Pascha · 4 days (Apr 14 – 17) |
| Long weekends | 5 |
Official public holidays
New Year's Day (Protochronia) (January 1, 2028), Epiphany (Theofaneia) (January 6, 2028), Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera) (February 28, 2028), Annunciation & Independence Day (25 Martiou) (March 25, 2028), Holy and Great Friday (Megali Paraskevi) (April 14, 2028), Pascha — Orthodox Easter Sunday (April 16, 2028), Monday of the Orthodox Pascha (Deutera tou Pascha) (April 17, 2028), Labour Day (Ergatiki Protomagia) (May 1, 2028), Whit Monday (Agia Pnevmata) (June 5, 2028), Dormition of the Virgin (Kimisi) (August 15, 2028), Ochi Day (28i Oktovriou) (October 28, 2028), Christmas Day (Christougenna) (December 25, 2028), Second Day of Christmas (Synaxi tis Theotokou) (December 26, 2028)
Days off recognised nationwide
13
Landing Monday–Friday
9 of 13
Lost to a weekend, no transfer
4 (Jan 1, Mar 25, Apr 16, Oct 28)
Longest automatic break
4 days, Apr 14–17 and Dec 23–26
Greece public holiday list
| Date | Day | Holiday | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 1, 2028 | Saturday | New Year's Day (Protochronia)Saturday — 2028 opens with a holiday it cannot use. It is also the feast of Saint Basil, whose name the vasilopita carries: the coin baked into the New Year’s cake is still cut at the table, but for a Monday-to-Friday worker the day falls inside the weekend and Greek law returns nothing.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| January 6, 2028 | Thursday | Epiphany (Theofaneia)Thursday — the blessing of the waters and the cross dive, from Piraeus to the smallest harbour: whoever surfaces with the cross carries the year’s blessing. A Thursday alone, three days before the weekend it cannot reach; one of the nine dates on which all businesses must close.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| February 28, 2028 | Monday | Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera)Monday — Pascha minus 48 days. 2028 is a leap year, so Great Lent opens on Monday February 28 and its second day is the extra 29 February: kites on the hills, lagana and taramasalata on the picnic cloth, no meat and no dairy. A general day of rest rather than an Article 60 compulsory closure date, so private-sector pay follows the collective agreement.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| March 25, 2028 | Saturday | Annunciation & Independence Day (25 Martiou)Saturday — the Annunciation and the 1821 outbreak of the War of Independence share one fixed date, but in 2028 that date is a Saturday, so the day is liturgically and legally a feast and calendrically a loss. It sits inside Great Lent, which is why the feast table runs to fish, and as one of the nine compulsory closure dates it shuts commerce on the busiest shopping day of the week.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| April 14, 2028 | Friday | Holy and Great Friday (Megali Paraskevi)Friday — Pascha minus 2. The Epitaphios is carried through the streets at night and candles are handed out; retail reopens only after midday. It is the opening day of 2028’s longest automatic break, and this time it coincides with Western Good Friday as well.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| April 16, 2028 | Sunday | Pascha — Orthodox Easter SundaySunday — April 16, and Gregorian Easter is on the very same day, as it was in 2025: the two paschalia agree only occasionally, and 2028 is one of those years. The Anastasis ends in the last minute of Holy Saturday, Mayiritsa soup and spit-roasted lamb follow. The feast is the biggest of the Orthodox year; as a Sunday it adds no day off.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| April 17, 2028 | Monday | Monday of the Orthodox Pascha (Deutera tou Pascha)Monday — Pascha plus 1: the second day of the feast, with leftover lamb, village panigiria and open-air tables all afternoon. One of the nine compulsory closure dates, and the day that closes the joint-longest break of 2028, April 14 to 17.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| May 1, 2028 | Monday | Labour Day (Ergatiki Protomagia)Monday — a compulsory closure day under Article 14 of Law 4468/2017, and the transfer clause in the same article does not bite: 1 May 2028 is neither a Sunday, nor a day of Holy Week, nor Easter Monday (that was April 17, two weeks back). A Monday hands out a three-day break, demonstrations in Athens and the flower wreath on the door — a pre-Christian custom older than the law behind the day off.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| June 5, 2028 | Monday | Whit Monday (Agia Pnevmata)Monday — Pascha plus 50 days, with Pentecost itself on Sunday June 4. Greeks traditionally take the outing to the mountains or a seaside village; this one lands just over ten weeks before the Dormition, so it is the last easy three-day break before the August crunch. A general day of rest, not an Article 60 closure date.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| August 15, 2028 | Tuesday | Dormition of the Virgin (Kimisi)Tuesday — the hinge of the Greek summer stands alone this year: Monday August 14 is a working day, so the calendar gives one day off, not a break. Pilgrims still converge on Tinos and villages still hold their panigiri, and it remains a compulsory closure date. Taking August 14 as leave turns the weekend into a four-day run, but that is a personal decision, which is why it is not in the long-weekend table below.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| October 28, 2028 | Saturday | Ochi Day (28i Oktovriou)Saturday — the anniversary of Metaxas’s “Όχι!” to the Italian ultimatum of 1940 lands on the weekend, so 2028’s national day costs a Monday-to-Friday worker nothing and delivers the parade and the school celebrations on a day nobody needs to book off. It is still one of the nine dates on which all businesses must close.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| December 25, 2028 | Monday | Christmas Day (Christougenna)Monday — the best Christmas weekday Greece can hand out: fixed feasts follow the Gregorian calendar the Greek state adopted in 1923, so Athens and Rome celebrate together, and in 2028 the day lands on a Monday right after the weekend. Christopsomo on the table, a model ship in the living room, the Kallantzeri singers at the door.Public holiday | Public holiday |
| December 26, 2028 | Tuesday | Second Day of Christmas (Synaxi tis Theotokou)Tuesday — the Synaxis of the Theotokos, a compulsory paid holiday for private-sector employees since Article 42 of Law 4554/2018, sits next to Christmas Monday and extends the break to Tuesday the 26th. Saturday 23 December to Tuesday 26 December is one of 2028’s two four-day runs and it asks for no leave at all.Public holiday | Public holiday |
2028 Greece calendar
01January
02February
03March
04April
05May
06June
07July
08August
09September
10October
11November
12December
Greece long weekends in 2028
Clean Monday
3 daysFeb 26 – 28
Saturday and Sunday, then Clean Monday on February 28 — the last weekend of winter and the first day of Great Lent, kites on the hills and a plate of lagana, with Tuesday 29 February as Lent’s second day in a leap year.
Pascha
4 daysApr 14 – 17
Good Friday April 14 to Easter Monday April 17: four days with no leave, and in 2028 the whole of Europe is on the same Sunday — Gregorian Easter is also April 16 — so ferries, island rooms and site tickets all tighten at once.
Labour Day
3 daysApr 29 – May 1
The weekend of April 29–30 and Labour Day on Monday May 1 — a three-day break that needs no leave, and one the Article 14 transfer rule has no reason to touch, since 1 May is neither a Sunday nor part of Holy Week in 2028.
Whit Monday
3 daysJun 3 – 5
The weekend plus Whit Monday on June 5 — the traditional outing day, Pentecost having fallen on Sunday June 4, and the last three-day break before the Dormition.
Christmas
4 daysDec 23 – 26
Saturday and Sunday, then Christmas Day on Monday the 25th and the Second Day of Christmas on Tuesday the 26th: a four-day close to 2028 with nothing asked of an employer — the mirror image of 2027, when both Christmas dates sat inside one weekend.
What 2028 is worth, day by day
Thirteen statutory dates, nine usable ones. New Year’s Day, the Annunciation and Ochi Day all land on a Saturday and Pascha on its own Sunday, and because Greek law has no substitute-day mechanism those four add nothing to a Monday-to-Friday year. The nine that behave like real time off are 6 January (Thu), Clean Monday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Whit Monday, the Dormition (Tue) and the two Christmas days (Mon and Tue). Ranking the four years on this page by how much holiday they actually deliver: 2025 gives twelve, 2026 ten, 2028 nine and 2027 only eight.
There is no make-up work in the other direction either. Greece has nothing like the Asian practice of converting a Saturday into a working day to pay for a long break, so this page publishes an empty makeupWorkdays array instead of omitting the field — the distinction is deliberate: an empty list means somebody checked, and Greek law provides no such instrument. Two windows are long enough to matter: Good Friday to Easter Monday (April 14–17) and the Christmas run (December 23–26), each four days bought with no leave at all.
Pascha 2028: the two calendars agree on April 16
Greece lives on a hybrid calendar. Fixed feasts — Christmas on December 25, the Epiphany on January 6, the Dormition on August 15 — follow the Gregorian calendar the Greek state adopted in 1923, so on those dates Athens, London and Berlin agree. Pascha does not: the Orthodox churches compute it from the Julian paschalion, tied to the Julian date of the vernal equinox (currently 13 April) and to their own paschal full moon, and they keep their own answer even when it happens to match the Gregorian one. In 2028 the two answers are the same, Sunday April 16, as they were in 2025; in 2026 they are seven days apart and in 2027 five weeks apart.
The coincidence has a practical side. Greece’s four movable holidays are computed from Pascha — Clean Monday minus 48, Good Friday minus 2, Whit Monday plus 50 — so in 2028 they land on February 28, April 14 and April 17, and those are the same days the churches of Rome and Canterbury keep. Organisations that coordinate with Athens in April can plan one Easter instead of two, which is exactly what happened in 2025 and will not be true in 2026 or 2027. The offsets are also the check on the arithmetic: Clean Monday and Whit Monday must be Mondays and Good Friday must be a Friday, and all nine remaining dates are fixed on the calendar. That is why this page and the ICS, CSV and PDF files behind its download buttons can publish 2028 as confirmed rather than provisional.
Two legal tiers, and the bridges that are not holidays
The tier that closes the country is narrower than the tier the calendar shows. Nine of the thirteen 2028 dates are compulsory closure days for all businesses under Article 60 of Law 4808/2021 — 1 and 6 January, 25 March, Easter Monday, 1 May (added by Article 14 of Law 4468/2017), 15 August, 28 October, and 25 and 26 December (the last by Article 42 of Law 4554/2018). Clean Monday, Good Friday, Pascha Sunday and Whit Monday are general days of rest in the 1980 framework instead: state offices, banks and schools stop and retail usually follows, but a private employee’s pay runs through the applicable collective agreement. In 2028 two of the nine closure dates fall on Saturdays, which is when Greek retail is busiest — an effect felt more in the shopping streets than in the labour code.
Two dates in 2028 invite bridging, and neither belongs in a long-weekend table. The Dormition is a Tuesday: take Monday August 14 as annual leave and the weekend becomes a four-day run into mid-August. The Epiphany is a Thursday: one leave on Friday January 7 welds it to the weekend behind it and makes four. Both are ordinary leave decisions, not calendar facts, and the Greek state offers nothing to help with them — no substitute days, and no make-up work either. The discretionary transfer in Article 14 of Law 4468/2017 is likewise idle in 2028: 1 May is a Monday, two weeks clear of Easter Monday on April 17, so the private-sector May Day holiday sits exactly where the law puts it.
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Official sources & data
- Επίσημες Αργίες – Ημιαργίες: παρ. 11 του άρθρου 1 της από 29/12/1980 Πράξης Νομοθετικού Περιεχομένου, κυρωθείσα με το άρθρο πρώτο του ν. 1157/1981 (ΦΕΚ Α΄ 126/12.5.1981) — εθνικές εορτές, κινητές εορτές εκ Πάσχα και ΚυριακαίVisit sourceΑποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Κρήτης — Decentralized Administration of Crete, Ministry of Interior, Hellenic Republic
- Ημέρες Αργίας — άρθρο 60 Ν. 4808/2021 (ημέρες υποχρεωτικής αργίας για όλες τις επιχειρήσεις), άρθρο 14 Ν. 4468/2017 (1η Μαΐου και ο διακριτή μεταφορά σε άλλη εργάσιμη ημέρα) και άρθρο 42 Ν. 4554/2018 (26η Δεκεμβρίου) — read live from hli.gov.gr on 22 September 2026Visit sourceΗΕΠ – ΣΕΠΕ / Hellenic Labour Inspectorate, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Hellenic Republic
- Nager.Date Public Holidays API — Greece 2028 (independent cross-check of all thirteen dates, retrieved 22 September 2026)Visit sourceNager.Date (open-source holiday data project) — non-governmental
- Date of Easter — the Julian paschalion (Meeus’s algorithm) as published there, which places Orthodox Pascha on 16 April 2028, the same Gregorian date as Easter 2028 (second independent cross-check of the Paschal date)Visit sourceWikipedia (community encyclopedia) — non-governmental
Frequently asked questions
How many public holidays does Greece have in 2028?
Thirteen nationwide days off, the same thirteen every year, because the list is fixed by standing law rather than published annually — the decree-law of 29 December 1980 (ratified as Law 1157/1981), extended for private-sector employees by Article 14 of Law 4468/2017 (1 May) and Article 42 of Law 4554/2018 (26 December), with the compulsory closure list gathered into Article 60 of Law 4808/2021. In 2028 nine of the thirteen land Monday to Friday; four fall on a weekend and Greek law returns nothing.
What is the longest holiday break in Greece in 2028?
The longest break in Greece is Pascha (Apr 14 – 17, 4 days).
What are the official public holidays in Greece in 2028?
Greece has 13 official public holidays in 2028: New Year's Day (Protochronia) (January 1, 2028), Epiphany (Theofaneia) (January 6, 2028), Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera) (February 28, 2028), Annunciation & Independence Day (25 Martiou) (March 25, 2028), Holy and Great Friday (Megali Paraskevi) (April 14, 2028), Pascha — Orthodox Easter Sunday (April 16, 2028), Monday of the Orthodox Pascha (Deutera tou Pascha) (April 17, 2028), Labour Day (Ergatiki Protomagia) (May 1, 2028), Whit Monday (Agia Pnevmata) (June 5, 2028), Dormition of the Virgin (Kimisi) (August 15, 2028), Ochi Day (28i Oktovriou) (October 28, 2028), Christmas Day (Christougenna) (December 25, 2028), Second Day of Christmas (Synaxi tis Theotokou) (December 26, 2028).
When is Orthodox Easter 2028, and is it the same as Western Easter?
Sunday April 16, 2028 — and yes, Gregorian Easter falls on the same day, so the two traditions coincide, as they did in 2025. The derived Greek dates are Good Friday April 14, Easter Monday April 17, Clean Monday February 28 and Whit Monday June 5. Within this four-year window 2026 puts the two Easters seven days apart and 2027 five weeks apart, so do not generalise: the coincidence is the exception, not the rule.
Why does 2028 lose four holidays to the weekend, and which ones?
New Year’s Day (Saturday 1 January), the Annunciation and Independence Day (Saturday 25 March), Pascha (Sunday 16 April) and Ochi Day (Saturday 28 October). Greek law has no substitute-day rule — the transfer provisions in the old legislation were repealed by Article 7 of Law 1400/1983 — so a holiday that lands on a weekend is spent there. The one surviving exception is discretionary and concerns 1 May only (Article 14 of Law 4468/2017), and in 2028 there is nothing to transfer.
How do I get a four-day break in August 2028?
By taking one day of your own. The Dormition on Tuesday August 15 is a compulsory closure date, but Monday the 14th is a normal working day, so the calendar itself offers only the Tuesday — Saturday 12 to Tuesday 15 August becomes a four-day run with a single day of annual leave. That is a personal leave plan rather than a feature of the Greek calendar, which is why the long-weekend table above lists five breaks and not six. The same arithmetic applies to Epiphany on Thursday January 6, where Friday the 7th is the bridge.
Which Greek holidays in 2028 force businesses to close?
Nine of the thirteen: 1 and 6 January, 25 March, Easter Monday (April 17), 1 May, 15 August, 28 October, and 25 and 26 December. That is the compulsory-closure list in Article 60 of Law 4808/2021, to which 1 May was added by Article 14 of Law 4468/2017 and 26 December by Article 42 of Law 4554/2018. The other four — Clean Monday, Good Friday, Pascha Sunday and Whit Monday — are general days of rest: the state, banks and schools close and commerce usually follows, but private-sector pay is settled by the applicable collective agreement rather than Article 60.
What should a visitor plan around in Greece for 2028?
Mid-April above everything. Because both Easters fall on April 16, the Greek break coincides with the British and German school holidays, and April 14–17 is the single tightest window of the four years on this page: ferries sell through, island rates jump and the major archaeological sites follow the state calendar, closing on Good Friday and Easter Monday. Then plan for 25 March, the national day, falling on a Saturday of Great Lent, and for the 23–26 December Christmas run, which keeps Athens quiet over the weekend while shops on Ermou stay shut for two statutory days. If you want the islands in August without the peak, aim for the weekend of August 12–13 and leave on Monday the 14th — the Dormition on the Tuesday empties the mainland, not the calendars of travellers who move a day earlier.
