Latvia Public Holidays: 2026 Dates & Pay Rules

If you are planning staffing or running payroll in Latvia, public holidays are one of the easiest places to stay ahead of issues before they turn into manual fixes. Latvia’s official public holidays are set by law, and once you map them to scheduled workdays, premium-pay rules, and substitute-day workflows, the rest becomes much more manageable.

This guide gives you a fast, practical view of what counts as a public holiday in Latvia, when employees should get paid time off, and what payroll needs to do if someone works that day.

Latvia's public holidays at a glance

Fast calendar notes for payroll planning in Latvia

• Certain holidays can create an extra weekday off. Under Latvia’s holiday law if May 4, the Song and Dance Festival closing day, or November 18 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the following working day also becomes a holiday. That can affect staffing, payroll cutoffs, and payslip timing.
• Movable holidays change every year. Easter-related dates, Mother’s Day, and Pentecost do not stay fixed. For 2026, Good Friday falls on April 3, Easter Monday on April 6, and Latvia’s postponed holiday falls on May 5. Confirm these dates early when you build your payroll calendar.
• Sunday holidays may not change anything for Monday-to-Friday teams. If an employee is not scheduled to work Sundays, a Sunday holiday often has no extra time-off effect. If they are scheduled, the holiday pay rules still matter.

Holiday pay rules in Latvia for employers and payroll teams

When an employee is off on a public holiday

The common baseline is simple. If the holiday falls on a day the employee was scheduled to work, and they do not work because it is a public holiday, you still pay them according to the rules that apply to their pay structure and schedule. For time-based pay, that usually means regular pay for the missed working day. For piecework arrangements, payment follows average earnings rules. If you are comparing leave entitlements across markets, Pebl’s guide to paid vacation days by country provides useful broader context.

When an employee works on a public holiday

This is the decision point that payroll and HR need to handle consistently. Latvia’s Labor Law says employees generally should not be required to work on public holidays unless it’s necessary to ensure continuity of operations. Then the employer must either grant rest on another day or pay the required supplement.

Premium pay for holiday work in Latvia

The standard approach is premium pay on top of the agreed hourly or daily rate. Under Latvia’s Labor Law, work on a public holiday carries a supplement of at least 100% of the hourly or daily wage rate. In practice, that usually means the employee receives normal pay plus an equal holiday premium for the hours worked.

Paid substitute day instead of holiday premium pay

A paid substitute day is the other common route. In practice, “in lieu” means the employee works on the holiday and then takes paid rest on another approved day. This can work well operationally, but only if the substitute day, time code, and manager approval are all recorded clearly so payroll is not left guessing.

When public holiday work is also overtime

Holiday work and overtime are not the same thing. If the same hours also qualify as overtime, both premiums may need to be considered depending on how the hours are counted and what the employee’s schedule looks like. This is one of the easiest places for payroll errors to creep in, so it’s worth setting a clear rule before the holiday hits.

Night work and shift schedules on public holidays

Holiday shifts often overlap with night work, especially in 24/7 environments. Latvia’s Labor Law provides that night work receives a supplement of at least 50%, so payroll teams should check whether a holiday shift also triggers night-work treatment, shift considerations, or both.

Latvia employer checklist for holiday compliance

Confirm which days count as public holidays

Start with Latvia’s statutory list and add the year-specific movable dates to your internal calendar. That way, HR, managers, and payroll are all working from the same version.

Set holiday-work rules in policies and employment terms

Document who can approve holiday work, when premium pay applies, when a substitute day can be used, and how employees should log those hours. Clear rules up front save a lot of back-and-forth later.

Build the holiday calendar into payroll operations

Add holiday dates, approval cutoffs, time-tracking codes, and substitute-day workflows to your payroll process. If your team is also standardizing payroll operations across markets, Pebl’s payroll calendar guide is a useful reference for building cleaner recurring workflows.

Keep records that match the pay slip

Timesheets, holiday codes, approvals, and premium calculations should all line up. If they do not, it becomes much harder to explain or correct a payroll result after the fact.

Check for more generous collective agreement terms

Collective agreements or internal policies can give employees better terms than the statutory minimum. What you cannot do is dip below the legal baseline.

Common Latvia holiday-pay scenarios for HR and finance teams

A public holiday falls on the employee’s non-working day

If the employee was not scheduled to work that day, there may be nothing extra to process unless a specific legal rule creates a replacement day off. That’s why some Sunday holidays have no real effect for standard Monday-to-Friday teams.

You run a 24/7 business in Latvia

You need to plan staffing and cost together. Public holiday coverage is not just about who is on shift. It also affects premium pay, substitute days, possible overtime, and sometimes night-work supplements.

You employ part-time workers with variable schedules

For part-time employees, the key question is whether the holiday falls on a day they were actually scheduled to work. That scheduled-day logic usually determines whether paid time off applies.

What an Employer of Record (EOR) in Latvia does for holiday pay and payroll

An Employer of Record (EOR) locally employs the talent on your behalf, runs payroll, and helps keep your employment setup aligned with local holiday and pay rules. That means an EOR helps you handle holiday calendars, local payroll processing, and day-to-day compliance without setting up your own entity first. You still direct the employee’s day-to-day work, goals, and performance. 

Because the EOR has deep local expertise, holiday entitlements show up correctly in employment terms, holiday work gets tracked the right way, and substitute rest days or premium pay are applied without you having to figure out the rules yourself.

The result is less guesswork for your team and a cleaner experience for your employees on the ground. You move faster, stay organized, and sidestep the kind of cleanup that piles up when local rules get treated as an afterthought.

How Pebl helps you hire and pay in Latvia

If you’re hiring in Latvia, Pebl’s EOR in Latvia helps you hire and pay without forcing you to build every local process from scratch. Through local employment support,  payroll setup, holiday calendar management, and practical guidance on Latvian rules, Pebl helps you stay compliant while keeping the day-to-day work simpler for HR and finance. 

Our global EOR services are also available in over 185 countries and managed on a single AI-first platform Get in touch, and we’d be happy to show you how our platform and our people can help you hire a single employee in Latvia or an entire distributed team around the world. 

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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