Denmark Public Holidays: 2026 Dates and Pay Rules

Public holidays in Denmark affect more than time off. They shape staffing, payroll timing, and what your team expects to happen when a holiday lands in the middle of a workweek. In practice, most employees expect to be off on official public holidays. Whether the day is paid, and what happens if someone works, usually depends on the employment contract and any collective agreement that applies.

One update matters right away: Great Prayer Day, or Store Bededag, stopped being a public holiday in 2024, which means it is now a normal working day unless an employee agreement says something different.

Planning around Denmark’s official public holidays

Use the table below to plan payroll runs, staffing coverage, and holiday communications for 2026. The dates tell you when an official holiday falls. The last three columns show where your contract terms, local practice, and collective agreement matter most.

2026 Denmark public holidays 

Store Bededag is the big scheduling change to keep in mind. Denmark’s list of official public holidays no longer includes Great Prayer Day, so the fourth Friday after Easter is now a regular working day unless your own agreement says otherwise.

A few other dates come up all the time even though they are not statutory public holidays. Constitution Day on June 5, May Day on May 1, Christmas Eve on December 24, and New Year’s Eve on December 31 are often treated as time off, reduced hours, or early closure by agreement.

Employee pay for public holidays

This is where the real payroll questions start. In Denmark, the answer usually depends on whether the employee is monthly salaried or paid by the hour.

Monthly salaried employees typically keep their normal pay even in months packed with public holidays. That is the setup many HR and finance teams are used to, and it is part of why holiday-heavy months do not usually reduce base pay for salaried staff.

Hourly-paid employees are a different matter. Their pay on a public holiday usually depends on the employment contract or the collective agreement that covers the role. Denmark relies heavily on agreed terms, so you should not assume the same rule applies across your whole workforce.

That split shows up in Denmark’s own holiday-pay framework. Guidance for employers notes that salaried employees can receive full pay in public holidays when they meet the relevant conditions, while hourly workers are more likely to be covered by contract-based or agreement-based arrangements.

You may also see teams refer to public holiday pay accrual for hourly workers as SH payment. At a high level, this is a way to offset lost earnings when a public holiday lands on a day the employee would otherwise have worked. It is common in collective-agreement environments, but the structure can vary. Some arrangements build up an accrual over time. Others rely on agreed percentages, supplements, or payroll codes. The key point is simple: check the exact agreement before payroll is processed.

If you are comparing Denmark to other markets, our guide to paid vacation days by country is a useful way to separate annual leave rules from public holiday handling, since those are not always treated the same.

What to review if an employee works on a Denmark public holiday

Before you approve payroll, check three things:

• How the hours are classified. Make sure you know whether the shift counts as normal hours, overtime, holiday hours, or a mix of those categories.
• Whether a premium applies. Many agreements set higher rates for work on public holidays, Sundays, or specific shift windows.
• Whether time off in lieu is available. If it is, confirm how it should be recorded and when it must be used.

This matters most for shift-heavy and customer-facing sectors. Healthcare, hospitality, logistics, retail, and manufacturing often keep operating on public holidays, so the payroll impact is real. What looks like one shift on the schedule can turn into premium pay, alternative rest time, or a coding issue if your rules are not clear before cutoff.

Observed weekday holidays

Denmark generally does not shift public holidays to a nearby weekday when they fall on a weekend. If a holiday lands on a Sunday, employers do not usually create an extra Monday holiday just to make up for it.

What employers do instead is more practical. They use rostering, apply the premium pay or supplements required by the contract or collective agreement, and in some cases offer time off in lieu. That is why your payroll setup needs to reflect the actual agreement, not a generic observed-holiday rule.

Denmark holiday dates that often confuse HR teams

Some of the dates that cause the most confusion are not official public holidays at all.

• Constitution Day. June 5 is not an official public holiday in Denmark, but it is often treated as a half-day or full day off by agreement or workplace custom. Guidance on time off on public holidays and Constitution Day makes that distinction especially clear.
• May Day. May 1 is not a statutory public holiday either, but some employers close or reduce hours without deducting salary.
• Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. December 24 and December 31 are not public holidays, yet many workplaces shorten the day or close entirely, especially in office-based environments.

That is exactly why your handbook is important. When a date is commonly treated as time off but not guaranteed by law, a written rule saves you from last-minute confusion.

Employer checklist for holiday compliance and payroll

A good system leads to repeatable output. You should always:

• Confirm which collective agreement applies, if any.
• Document holiday rules in the employment contract and staff handbook.
• Align time tracking codes for public holidays, worked holidays, and time off in lieu.
• Keep payroll evidence for premiums, supplements, and accruals.
• Communicate the holiday calendar early to avoid scheduling disputes.

Payroll tips 

Build a Denmark holiday calendar in your payroll system at the start of the year. Add reminders for variable-date holidays like Easter, Ascension Day, and Pentecost. Then check payroll cutoffs for any period that includes a holiday week, especially if you have hourly workers, premium pay, or timesheets that need manager approval before payroll closes.

If your payroll team supports multiple countries, our payroll calendar can help you work through cutoffs, approvals, and holiday-week timing across markets.

What an Employer of Record (EOR) in Denmark can do 

An employer of record is a third party that legally employs your team member in Denmark on your behalf. This allows you to hire without establishing a local entity, avoiding the hidden costs of entity establishment. 

If you are hiring without local infrastructure, an EOR in Denmark can take a lot of the day-to-day admin off your plate. You can use their local support to put compliant employment contracts in place, reflect holiday and pay rules correctly, and keep payroll coding aligned with local practice.

That matters even more if you are managing a mix of salaried employees, hourly workers, and holiday-related supplements. Pebl can also support the practical side of hiring in Denmark and connect holiday handling to your wider global payroll process, so your HR and finance teams are not stuck patching together local fixes every time a holiday week rolls around.

Pebl handles Denmark holiday pay

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve got your sights set on Denmark. Maybe you’ve even found the perfect talent. There’s a lot that needs to be taken care of before you can start hiring—researching taxes, finding experts in local labor law, finding a payroll processor, and more. It takes a lot of time and a lot of money. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an easier way?

With Pebl, there is.

Our EOR platform allows you to hire, pay, and manage employees in 185+ countries around the world without setting up your own local entity. That means your new talent starts in days, not months. We handle it all: onboarding, benefits, salary benchmarking, payroll, and compliance with all local regulations. Every public holiday, overtime or double time pay the law requires, we make sure it happens. All you have to do is stay focused on leading your team.

When you’re ready to do things the easy way, let us know.

This information does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal or tax advice and is for general informational purposes only. The intent of this document is solely to provide general and preliminary information for private use. Do not rely on it as an alternative to legal, financial, taxation, or accountancy advice from an appropriately qualified professional. The content in this guide is provided “as is,” and no representations are made that the content is error-free. 

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