California State Holidays 2026

Two California holiday lists, applied to 2026

This page draws on two holiday lists in California's Government Code, and they do not agree. Section 19853 entitles state employees to eleven dated holidays: January 1, the third Mondays of January and February, March 31, the last Monday in May, July 4, the first Monday in September, November 11, Thanksgiving Day, the day after Thanksgiving, and December 25. It adds the personal holiday an employee chooses under section 19854 and every day the Governor appoints. Section 6700, the list of "holidays in this state", is far longer. It also names Juneteenth, Columbus Day, Lincoln Day (February 12), Genocide Remembrance Day (April 24), Admission Day (September 9), Native American Day (the fourth Friday in September), Lunar New Year, Diwali, Good Friday from noon to 3 p.m., and every Sunday. The calendar on this page follows the dated holidays of section 19853, the days state employees are entitled to as holidays.

In 2026 the section 6700 days that section 19853 leaves out fall like this: Juneteenth on Friday, June 19, Admission Day on Wednesday, September 9, Native American Day on Friday, September 25 and Columbus Day on Monday, October 12. None of the four is a state-employee holiday under section 19853; subdivision (e) instead lets an employee choose eight hours of holiday credit for Juneteenth or Native American Day in place of the personal holiday credit. Juneteenth and Columbus Day are federal holidays, so both stay in this page's business-day count.

March 31 is a Tuesday in 2026. Section 6700 calls it Farmworkers Day in the text in force since March 26, 2026 (the text archived in June 2024 said Cesar Chavez Day); section 19853 names only the date.

Section 19853(b) moves a Sunday holiday to the Monday after and a Saturday November 11 to the Friday before. It moves no other Saturday holiday; CalHR states that employees then receive holiday credit.

2026 in California: the same total by a different route

A year's working days are its weekdays minus the holidays that land on them, and both halves move. The weekday supply depends only on the year's length and the weekday it starts on; the holiday half depends on where each fixed date falls that year. 2026 runs 365 days, 52 whole weeks and one day over. It opens and closes on a Thursday, so the spare day is a weekday and the year holds 261 of them.

Eleven federal holidays in this page's count fall on weekdays, so California has 250 working days in 2026. That matches 2025 exactly, with the same weekday supply and the same number of weekday holidays. 2027 falls to 249.

Saturday holidays in 2026

A fixed-date holiday on a weekend is where the federal, Reserve Bank and state calendars part company. For most federal employees a Saturday holiday moves to the Friday and a Sunday one to the Monday (5 U.S.C. 6103(b) and Executive Order 11582, as OPM applies them); the Federal Reserve Banks follow the Monday rule but not the Friday one; and California has its own rule. In 2026:

• Independence Day falls on Saturday, July 4; most federal employees have Friday, July 3 as the holiday instead. The Federal Reserve Banks are open that Friday; the Board of Governors is closed. Friday, July 3 is not a California state-employee holiday. Section 19853(b) moves no Saturday holiday except November 11, and CalHR gives employees holiday credit instead.

This page's count leaves out the Friday or Monday that federal employees have as the holiday, because the count follows the federal employees' holidays. A count on the Federal Reserve Banks' schedule has one more business day across each of those Fridays.

Where California's own calendar departs from the count in 2026

The count on this page and California's state-employee calendar (Government Code section 19853) differ only where one of them has a holiday on a weekday and the other does not. The California calendar has Farmworkers Day on Tuesday, March 31 and Day after Thanksgiving on Friday, November 27 as holidays, which the federal count treats as working days. The federal count takes out Juneteenth on Friday, June 19, Independence Day (observed) on Friday, July 3, and Columbus Day on Monday, October 12, which the California calendar does not.

On balance the California calendar has 251 working days in 2026, one more than the 250 this page counts.

Where the fixed-date holidays land in 2026

A holiday tied to a calendar date moves one weekday later each year, so the week it breaks changes every year while its date stays put. Against 2025, each of these has moved one weekday on:

• New Year's Day is a Thursday in 2026, after a Wednesday in 2025, which leaves Friday, January 2 as a single working day before the weekend on this page's count.
• March 31 is a Tuesday in 2026, after a Monday in 2025, which strands Monday, March 30 between the weekend and the holiday on the California calendar.
• Juneteenth is a Friday in 2026, after a Thursday in 2025, so on this page's count the weekend after it becomes three days off.
• Independence Day is a Saturday in 2026, after a Friday in 2025, a weekend day, so the date itself takes no working day on this page's count; the weekend rules above decide whether a weekday is given for it.
• Veterans Day is a Wednesday in 2026, after a Tuesday in 2025: a midweek break that leaves two working days on each side of it on this page's count.
• Christmas Day is a Friday in 2026, after a Thursday in 2025, so on this page's count the weekend after it becomes three days off.

Eight long weekends in 2026

A weekday holiday next to a weekend turns two days off into three; two closures side by side, or one on each side of a weekend, make four or more. That is arithmetic on the dates, so the list moves every year even when the holidays do not. On this page's count, California has eight such breaks in 2026:

• Saturday, January 17 to Monday, January 19: three days, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
• Saturday, February 14 to Monday, February 16: three days, for Presidents' Day.
• Saturday, May 23 to Monday, May 25: three days, for Memorial Day.
• Friday, June 19 to Sunday, June 21: three days, for Juneteenth.
• Friday, July 3 to Sunday, July 5: three days, for Independence Day (observed).
• Saturday, September 5 to Monday, September 7: three days, for Labor Day.
• Saturday, October 10 to Monday, October 12: three days, for Columbus Day.
• Friday, December 25 to Sunday, December 27: three days, for Christmas Day.

On the California calendar the breaks differ: Thursday, November 26 to Sunday, November 29 (four days). Those follow the state's own holidays and do not change this page's count.

Bridge days and midweek breaks in 2026

A holiday on a Tuesday or a Thursday strands a single working day between it and the weekend; a Wednesday one splits the week into two short runs instead. 2026 has both kinds. The stranded days are Friday, January 2, next to New Year's Day and Friday, November 27, next to Thanksgiving Day.

The midweek closure is Veterans Day on Wednesday, November 11. A deadline counted across a Wednesday holiday loses its day in the middle of the week, not at either end, so a count that steps through the week one day at a time has to skip it there.

California month by month, 2026

A month's working days are its weekdays less the holidays on them, so a month with no weekday holiday is set entirely by how its weekdays fall, and every holiday that lands midweek takes one day off the month it sits in.

The second column follows the federal set this page counts. The third follows California's state-employee calendar (Government Code section 19853), for readers dealing with that calendar directly.

California's longest stretch without a holiday, 2026

The longest run of working days with no weekday holiday inside it depends on how far apart consecutive closures sit, so it moves whenever one fixed-date holiday changes weekday. In 2026 it runs from Tuesday, February 17 to Friday, May 22 inside the first half of the year: 69 working days, 13 full working weeks and four days.

The first working day of 2026 on this count is Friday, January 2, after New Year's Day. The last is Thursday, December 31, which is the latest date a count of working days can end on inside 2026.

Which calendar the 2026 count uses

The working-day total counts the legal public holidays of 5 U.S.C. 6103 on the dates most federal employees have them, as OPM publishes them. It is not identical to the Federal Reserve Banks' calendar. The Board of Governors' K.8 schedule states that the Federal Reserve Banks are open on the Friday before a Saturday holiday, and in 2026 that means Friday, July 3. A count on the Reserve Banks' schedule has one more business day across that Friday than this page's count shows.

California's state-employee calendar (Government Code section 19853) is shown in the table and never subtracted from the count.