France Business Day Calculator

Service-public.fr, the State's legal information site, distinguishes three kinds of day. A jour calendaire is any day of the calendar year, holidays included. A jour ouvrable is any day that may legally be worked except the weekly rest day (usually Sunday) and the jours fériés not usually worked: six a week, generally Monday to Saturday, and paid leave counted in jours ouvrables runs on that week. A jour ouvré is a day actually worked in the business, generally Monday to Friday, less the jours fériés not usually worked. This calculator counts jours ouvrés on a Monday-to-Friday week. When a clause cites jours ouvrables instead, treat the calculator's output as a Monday-Friday proxy and add the relevant Samedi offsets manually.

The 11 national fêtes légales in this calculator come from the Code du travail. Only 1 May is obligatorily chômé for every employee; the other ten are non-working where a convention collective, a branch or company agreement, or the employer provides for it, which is why practice varies. Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin run a separate local regime that adds the 2nd day of Christmas (26 December) and Vendredi Saint, the latter only in communes that have a Protestant temple or a mixed church. A pont, the working day between a jour férié and a weekend, is not one of the eleven fêtes légales, and this calculator does not treat it as a holiday.

The 11 national jours fériés:

• Jour de l'An (1 January)
• Lundi de Pâques (Monday after Easter)
• Fête du Travail (1 May)
• Fête de la Victoire 1945 (8 May)
• Ascension (39 days after Easter, always a Thursday)
• Lundi de Pentecôte (50 days after Easter)
• Fête Nationale (14 July)
• Assomption (15 August)
• Toussaint (1 November)
• Armistice 1918 (11 November)
• Noël (25 December)

A fête légale that falls on a Saturday or Sunday stays there: service-public.fr notes that when a jour férié chômé falls on a day not usually worked, such as a Sunday, the employee gains no extra day off, unless a collective agreement provides better terms. The journée de solidarité is arranged by a company or establishment agreement or, failing that, a branch agreement, so its date is not in the national calendar. How we determine holidays →

Urssaf contributions are aligned to the DSN and fall on the 5th of the following month where the employer has 50 or more employees whose salaries are paid inside the month worked, and on the 15th in every other case, including for a large employer that pays the following month. TVA under the régime réel normal is filed and paid between the 15th and the 24th, on the date the DGFiP shows in the espace professionnel.

Public-sector contracts run on caps that are d'ordre public rather than negotiable: 30 days for the State and local authorities, 50 days for public health establishments and 60 days for other public undertakings. Under the Code de procédure civile, a period that would expire on a samedi, a dimanche or a jour férié or chômé is extended to the first jour ouvrable that follows, so a period ending on a Saturday runs to the Monday.