Public holidays in Switzerland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Switzerland, holidays — with the exception of August 1 — are defined on a cantonal basis. Holidays in the entire country are written in bold. Abbreviations for the Swiss cantons are described in Cantons of Switzerland.

1 National Holidays
2 Regional Holidays
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] National Holidays

Date	Name	Local Name	Holiday in
January 1	New Year's Day	Neujahr	entire Switzerland
January 2	Saint Berchtold	Berchtoldstag	AG (partly), BE, FR, GL, JU, LU, NE, OW, SH, SO, TG, VD, ZG, ZH
January 6	Epiphany	Heilige drei Könige	GR (partly), SZ, TI, UR
March 19	Saint Joseph's Day	Josefstag	cath. regions: GR (partly), LU (partly), NW, SO (partly), SZ, TI, UR, VS
Friday before Easter	Good Friday	Karfreitag	entire Switzerland, without TI, VS
Moveable Sunday in March/April	Easter	Ostern / Ostersonntag	entire Switzerland
Monday after Easter	Easter Monday	Ostermontag	entire Switzerland, without VS
May 1	May Day	Tag der Arbeit	BL, BS, FR (partly), JU, LU (partly), SH, SO (partly), TG, TI, ZH
40 days after Easter	Ascension Day	Auffahrt	entire Switzerland
50 days after Easter	Pentecost	Pfingsten	entire Switzerland
Monday after Pentecost	Whit Monday	Pfingstmontag	entire Switzerland, without VS
61 days after Easter	Corpus Christi	Fronleichnam	Catholic regions: AG (partly), AI, FR (partly), GR (partly), JU, LU, NW, OW, SO, SZ, TI, UR, VS, ZG
June 29	St. Peter and St. Paul	Peter und Paul	only TI
August 1	Swiss National Day	Schweizer Nationalfeiertag	entire Switzerland
August 15	Assumption of Mary	Mariä Himmelfahrt	Catholic regions: AG (partly), AI, FR (partly), GR (partly), JU, LU, NW, OW, SO, SZ, TI, UR, VS, ZG
Third Sunday in September	Swiss federal fast	Eidgenössischer Dank-, Buss- und Bettag	entire Switzerland, without GE
November 1	All Saints	Allerheiligen	Catholic regions: AG (partly), AI, FR (partly), GL, GR (partly), JU, LU, NW, OW, SG, SO, SZ, TI, UR, VS, ZG
December 8	Immaculate Conception	Mariä Empfängnis	Catholic regions: AG (partly), AI, FR (partly), GR (partly), LU, NW, OW, SO (partly), SZ, TI, UR, VS, ZG
December 25	Christmas	Weihnachtstag	entire Switzerland
December 26	St. Stephen's Day	Stephanstag	entire Switzerland, without GE, JU, NE, VD, VS

[edit] Regional Holidays

In addition to these national or general holidays there are also many regional and local holidays, most of which are only valid for one district or a few communes and sometimes are not accepted by law. Due to the high number of such local holidays, the following selection can only show a few of them:

Date	Name	Holiday in
5 days before Ash Wednesday	Carnival Thursday	LU, NW, UR
Monoday, Tuesday before Ash Wednesday	Carnival	SZ, GL only Monday
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday after Ash Wednesday	Carnival in Basel	only BS
March 1	Republic's day	only NE
First Thursday in April	Näfelser Fahrt	only GL
June 23	Independence day	only JU
Thursday following the first Sunday in September	Jeûne genevois (Genevan fast)	only GE
First weekend (and following Monday) in September	Knabenschiessen	only city (and agglomeration) of Zurich
September 25	Bruderklausenfest	only OW
December 31	Restauration of the Republic	only GE