Public Holidays in Catalunya: 2024

Mark those public holidays in your 2024 Calendar already!

“Adeu” 2023 and “Hola!” 2024!

Given the name of our website, it should come as no surprise that our aim is to help you “NjOY!” life on the Costa Brava, so we’ve put together a list of the public holidays in Catalunya in 2024 for you to njoy.

By the way, a public holiday is called a dia festiu in Catalan, and a día festivo in Castellano-Spanish.

National Public Holidays

Across the country of Spain, there are certain fixed national holidays that apply to all regions. These number nine in total and include New Year’s Day, Día de Reyes on the 6th of January, Labour Day on the 1st of May, the Feast of the Assumption on the 15th of August, the Spanish National Day on the 12th of October, All Saint’s Day on the 1st of November, the Day of the Spanish Constitution on the 6th of December followed a couple of days later by the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th (except this year – more on that below). And, of course, Christmas Day on the 25th of December.

Good Friday is also a día festivo throughout Spain, but, obviously, the actual date changes from year to year, so really, there are 10 national holidays in Spain: 9 fixed + 1 floating.

Regional Holidays

In addition to the ten Spanish holidays, each Comunidad Autónoma also has its own regional day, which, in the case of our “Autonomous Community”, is the Diada de Catalunya on the 11th of September. Each autonomous government can then choose up to three further public holidays for its region but, in some cases, they often choose to designate fewer in order to allow for more public holidays to be assigned at a local level.

Catalunya

Over the Easter period, which of course falls on different dates each year, every region has either two or three public holidays but not always the same days as one other.

For example, Good Friday is a holiday across the land, as we mentioned above, as is Holy Thursday everywhere except in Catalunya and neighbouring Valencia. On the other hand, Catalunya has a dia festiu on Easter Monday, whereas most other regions do not.

Although the Feast of St. John (Sant Joan) on the 24th of June is celebrated in many places throughout Spain, only in Catalunya, Valencia and Galicia is it an official regional holiday.

While everyone has a holiday on Christmas Day, the 25th of December, Catalunya is the only autonomous region to have the next day, St. Stephen’s Day, off too.

To recap, Catalunya has ten public holidays in common with the rest of Spain. It also has its own national dia festiu on 11 September, plus Easter Monday, Saint John’s Day and St. Stephen’s Day.

Sundays don’t count!

If a public holiday happens to fall on a Sunday, the government can designate an alternative date for the holiday or, as is usually the case in Catalunya, they can allow local authorities to choose one themselves instead. It is for this reason that you will sometimes find that one local municipality has a local holiday on a certain day while their neighbouring townland does not.

This year, 2024, for example, as the 8th of December falls on a Sunday, the Catalan government has not made it an official holiday, meaning that local governments will be allowed to designate an additional public holiday in their respective jurisdictions. Bonus!

Maybe we should move to “Morocco”!

In total, each ‘autonomous community’ in Spain is designated 14 public holidays per year – including the nine national ones.

The two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla that belong to Spain but which are located on the north coast of Africa – effectively enclaves within Morocco – have, since 2010, been allowed an extra official public holiday to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha or (Feast of the Sacrifice), making it the first non-Christian religious festival to be officially celebrated in Spain since the end of the Reconquista in 1492.

And did you know that Monte Hacho in Ceuta is reputed to have once been one of the Pillars of Hercules, with the Rock of Gibraltar being the other? One version of the myth is that Hercules smashed through a mountain to create a sea passage between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, leaving a “pillar” on either side. According to the myth, that mountain had once been the god Atlas, who had been turned to stone when he looked at the head of Medusa. But we digress!

“Making a Bridge”

When the Spanish or Catalans have a public holiday that falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, it is quite common for employers to give their workers the Monday or Friday off – or for employees themselves to take the Monday or Friday off – and make a long weekend of it. This custom is referred to as hacer puente, or ‘making a bridge’. No sense in letting work get in the way of a good fiesta!