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Public Holidays and Bank Holidays for Spain

The list of Spain bank holidays, national holidays and public holidays for 2008, comes from the Q++ Worldwide Public Holidays Database, the professional source of international public holidays long trusted by the world's foremost diary publishers. The information on this page is provided for private, non-professional, use. Qualified professionals can license data for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and beyond. For details, please visit our licensing information page or

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05 Dec 2008 (Iberclear) All Spanish stock exchanges will be closed on December 24 and 31, 2008. As such, there will be no trading on December 24 and 31, 2008. Settlement of against payment trades in equities will not be possible on these dates. • 03 Dec 2008 (El País-Melilla) Sources: El País (Melilla) and Spain public holidays (qppstudio.net). The government of Spain's autonomous territory of Melilla has voted to make the Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) Muslim festival one of the autonomy's 2 public holidays that it is allowed to choose, starting in 2010. • 25 Oct 2008 (Las Provincias) The Plenary Council of the Community of the Spanish autonomous region of Valencia has released its official calendar of public holidays for 2009. • 26 Sep 2008 (Europa Press) The governing council of the Madrid autonomous region community (Consejo de Gobierno de la Comunidad de Madrid) approved yesterday the list of 2009 regional public holidays, applicable to all municipalities within the community. • 26 Sep 2008 (Colbenson) Extremadura's first vice-president and spokesperson,, Dolores Pallero, announced the release of the 2009 calendar of regional public holidays for the autonomous region of Extremadura. • 26 Sep 2008 (Innova) Upon a suggestion by its advisor for employment and training (consejero de Empleo y Formación), Constantino Sotoca, the governing council of the autonomous region of Murcia, released it calendar of regional public holidays for 2009. • 25 Sep 2008 (Ceuta al Día) The autonomous community of Ceuta has announced its 2009 public holidays calendar, which remains unchanged from 2008, with its regional and municipal public holidays being San Antonio, Nuestra Señora de África and the Día de Ceuta. • 12 Sep 2008 (El Mundo-Valladolid) The Consejo de Gobierno of Spain's autonomous community of Castilla y León has announced the 2 regional public holidays that it, like all other autonomous regions of Spain, is entitled to declare annually. • 10 Sep 2008 (europapress.es) The government of Spain's autonomous region of Aragon has announced its list of regional public holidays for 2009. • 10 Aug 2008 (Melilla Hoy) The Governing Council of the autonomous region of Melilla has announced that the 2 regional public holidays for 2009 would remain the same as in the past. • 02 Aug 2008 (larioja.com) The government of Spain's autonomous region of La Rioja has released the list of its 2009 public holidays. • 24 Jul 2008 (Diario Sur-Malaga) After last year's failure of a draft law making the Islamic festival of Aid El Kebir (Feast of Sacrifice) a regional public holiday in the Spanish autonomous region of Melilla, the CpM (Coalición por Melilla) has now petitioned the regional governemt directly for the inclusion of this festival in the list of the autonomous region's list of public holidays. • 22 Jun 2008 (Finanzas.com-Logroño) The autonomous region of La Rioja had its inhabitants vote online to choose the 2 public holidays that are left at the discretion of each of Spain's autonomous regions. • 30 Sep 2007 (Comunidad de Madrid) The Comunidad de Madrid announced the list of 2008 regional public holidays in the autonomous community of Madrid. • 07 Sep 2007 (larioja.com) Spain's autonomous region of La Rioja has announced the list of the 12 public holidays to be observed in the autonomous region in 2008: 1/1, 20/3, 21/3, 24/3, 1/5, 9/6, 25/7, 15/8, 1/11, 6/12, 8/12, and 25/12. • 07 Sep 2007 (Diario de León) The Consejo de Gobierno de Castilla y León announced the list of 2008 regional public holidays in that autonomous region of Spain. The list contains a new twist, in 2008, when Monday, January 7, and Monday, October 13, will both be public holidays, as January 6 (Epiphany) and October 12 (Día de la Hispanidad), both fall on a Sunday. • 20 Jul 2007 (El Correo Gallego) Galicia announced its regional holidays for 2008, which will see the return of Día de San José (May 19), as well as the more frequently occurring Día das Letras Galegas (May 17). • More News Updates For the full version of the summarized news items above, and older news items not displayed above, go to the Spain public holidays news and updates page, or worldwide public holidays news and updates page, or subscribe to one of our free email newsletters.

Administrative Division: For the purpose of public holidays, Spain is divided into seventeen autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas), and two African autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas). Their abbreviations are: • • Andalucía (AN), • Aragón (AR), • Asturias (O), • Balearic Islands (IB), • Basque Country (PV), • Canary Islands (CN), • Cantabria (S), • Castilla-La Mancha (CM), • Castilla y León (CL), • Catalonia (CT), • Ceuta (CE), • Extremadura (EX), • Galicia (GA), • La Rioja (LO), • Madrid (M), • Melilla (ML), • Murcia (MU), • Navarra (NA), • Valencia (VC), • as set out in ISO 3166-2:ES . • National and Regional Public Holidays: Spanish regions, towns, villages and cities have additional public holidays of their own. There is a base of, usually 9, public holidays that are common to all regions of Spain, plus Epiphany and Maundy Thursday which each region can replace with one or two region-specific public holidays. Regions also have the option of adding a regional public holiday, without removing any of the common ones, or Epiphany and Maundy Thursday . • Epiphany: although it is, in theory, with Maundy Thursday, one of the 2 public holidays that each region can replace with another, in practice, over the last 30 years there has been only one occasion, in Catalonia, when Epiphany was not observed somewhere in Spain. • Maundy Thursday is not a public holiday in Catalonia. • Easter Monday is a public holiday in Catalonia, the Basque Region, Valencia, Navarra, and La Rioja. • Although Christmas Eve is not a public holiday, some shops and businesses may be closed or will close early on this day. • Saint Stephen's Day is a public holiday in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. • Annual Selection of Regional Holidays: The main reason why the specific public holidays for each province and municipality change every year, is that these are usually patron saint days, which always occur on a fixed date. Therefore, when these fixed dates fall on a weekend, another holiday or patron saint is chosen for that year, to avoid "wasting" a holiday. • Note that 2 of the country-wide public holidays, Constitution Day and Immaculate Conception Day, are only one day apart (December 6 and 8). Therefore, certain years, depending on which days of the week these holidays occur, December 7 can become a de facto public holiday, with either businesses closing for the 3 days, or individuals taking the day off to make the bridge (hacer puente). • Weekend Public Holidays: Public holidays that occur on a weekend are not officially moved to the following Monday. • However, when a public holiday falls on a Thursday or Tuesday, it is common practice to "make the bridge" (hacer puente) by taking off the Friday or Monday so creating a very long weekend. When this happens you may find businesses running on short staff or smaller family run business closed for the full period . • Electoral law does not allow electoral polls to take place within 3 months of each other. • Other Sources of Information For information not covered here, see the following specialized websites: Bank of Spain (Spain central bank), ASI Hot Spots (security-related world events: terrorist threats, political strife, strikes, criminal activity, aviation incidents and health outbreaks), CIA World Factbook (maps, demographic and economic statistics), Copp Clark (financial markets' trading hours, settlement holidays and currency non-clearing days), and the IFES Election Guide (information covering upcoming elections, referenda, electoral structures and past voter participation).

Observance : Any entry in the Observance column indicates that, in Spain, the holiday may be regional or non-official or limited to certain religious and/or linguistic groups, or begin at a time other than midnight. Note that religious holidays are included only if they are national public holidays, or if the national labour code has specific holiday allowances for employees of specific religions. For more information, see our pages on the religious calendars of the world.

Disclaimer
In many parts of the world, holidays are subject to arbitrary, last minute, changes by local authorities. While every effort has been made to present an accurate list of 2008 bank holidays, legal holidays and public holidays for Spain, we cannot accept any responsibility for any error or omission in the data presented above. You are therefore advised to verify the above dates with the embassy or consulate of Spain, before planning any trip to Spain. For last-minute updates to worldwide public holidays, visit our blog or subscribe to our free email newsletters.