Norway never republishes its holiday list. § 2 of the Holiday Act of 24 February 1995 names ten feast days — New Year’s Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Whit Monday, Christmas Day and the Second Day of Christmas — and letter a) quietly adds every ordinary Sunday. The two May dates, 1. mai and 17. mai, come from Lov om 1 og 17 mai som høgtidsdager of 26 April 1947. Total: twelve. What changes from year to year is only the weekday pattern, and in 2028 the pattern is generous: nine of the twelve fall Monday to Friday, against six in 2027.

Three days are still lost, and by the same mechanism that makes 2027 lean. Norway has no substitute-day rule, no transfer to the nearest Monday and no annual decree: 1. januar lands on a Saturday, Easter Sunday on April 16 and Pentecost on June 4, and all three disappear into days that were already off. The Saturday landing is the expensive one — January 2028 contains no weekday holiday at all, which surprises people planning a winter trip. Nine weekday days off is nonetheless the best of the 2025–2028 set.

In 2028 the national day is a Wednesday, which is the neutral case: it is a genuine day off, but it bridges nothing, and the eve on Tuesday May 16 is expressly an ordinary working day. That last point is statutory, not customary: § 2 of the 1947 Act says the day before 1. mai and the day before 17. mai count as ordinary working days rather than as “the day before a Sunday”, unless that eve falls on a Saturday, on the day before Ascension Day, or on a Sunday or other holy day. None of those exceptions applies on May 16, 2028.

Two other rules bite on the day itself. § 1 of the 1947 Act applies §§ 5 and 6 of the Holiday Act to 17. mai correspondingly, so fixed outlets selling goods to consumers must stay closed — no shops on the national day, with the usual exemptions for small grocery shops, petrol stations, camp-site and designated tourist-area stores, restaurant sales and galleries. But § 4’s ban on public events, performances and sports between 06:00 and 13:00 does not apply, because item 4 of its exception list names arrangements on 1. og 17. mai. That combination is exactly what Norway looks like on May 17: closed shops, open streets, and a children’s parade that starts before lunch.

December 24, 2028 is a Sunday, and that makes an odd overlap. Julaften is not one of the named days in § 2 — it is a working day that almost everybody gets off through contracts, collective agreements and custom, which Norwegians call allmennfri. But § 2 a) makes ordinary Sundays helligdager, so on December 24, 2028 the eve is closed for a different legal reason: it is a Sunday. § 5’s 16:00 deadline for julaften is therefore redundant that year, and the Sunday-opening allowance for the three last Sundays before julaften — December 3, 10 and 17 — does not extend to December 24 itself.

The winter shape of 2028 is unusually kind: Saturday December 23, Sunday julaften, Monday Christmas Day and Tuesday Second Day of Christmas. Four consecutive days off with nothing to request, then an ordinary Wednesday back at work on December 27. New Year’s Eve, December 31, is another Sunday, and the 2029 New Year’s Day is a Monday — so the run of winter holidays straddles the year end without a single bridge day being needed.