A public holiday off work in Greece: when the day is paid

Before the details, here is the whole picture. A holiday is paid differently depending on two things: whether you are paid a salary or a daily wage, and whether you worked or not. The amounts are for a salary of €1,150 and a daily wage of €45.

The only cell without an amount is the one for an employee on a daily wage who does not work. It is not without an amount by oversight. It stays that way because we do not want to give you an amount without a checked source. Further down you will see how to find the answer for your own job.

A monthly salary pays for the month, not for the days. That is the key to the whole subject. When a month has a holiday, your salary does not shrink, because the day of the holiday is already inside it.

That is why a salaried employee who works on a holiday is not paid for the day a second time. They get only the 75% premium, on top of their salary1. And for the same reason, when they do not work, they lose nothing: the day is paid either way.

Take a salary of €1,150 gross. In October 2026 you will get €1,150 whether you work on the 28th or not. Your net pay will be the same as every month, €928.28, if you have no children and are over 30. The only difference is that, had you worked, you would have an extra €34.50 gross for the premium.

So if you see a deduction for the day of the holiday on your October payslip, something is wrong. Ask the payroll office in writing, and ask them to explain the line.

An employee’s month always counts 25 working days, as if they worked 6 days a week. That is why the daily pay of a salary is always the salary divided by 25, whatever the month3. On €1,150 it is €46.00, the same in February as in December.

The actual working days, though, change a lot from month to month:

Your salary is the same in all of them. December has two more working days than February, and it is not paid more. October has a holiday, and it is not paid less. That is the deal of a monthly salary: a fixed amount for the month, whatever the calendar says.

You can see the same in your insurance record. An employee on a salary is credited with 25 insurance days a month, while a manual worker on a daily wage is credited with the days worked. You can see your insurance days for each month at e-EFKA.

Two holidays of 2026 fall on a Saturday: 15 August and 26 December. If you work a 5-day week, you would not have worked on the Saturday anyway. Your monthly salary stays the same, as in every month.

If you work a 6-day week, Saturday is a working day for you, and the same applies as for any holiday on a working day. If you do not work, your salary does not change. If you work, you get the premium.

The case of shift workers, whose days off change every week, is a little harder. If the holiday falls on your day off, on a monthly salary you lose nothing, because the month is paid in full. If you expected an extra day off in place of the holiday, that is set by your contract or by an agreement with your employer. The site’s calculator does not count it.

An employee on a daily wage is paid for the days they work. If they work the holiday, the rule is clear: they get the daily wage for the day plus 75% on top of it1. On a daily wage of €45, the day of the holiday brings €78.75. The minimum daily wage is €41.094.

But what happens when they do not work? Here we will be honest. The site does not yet have a checked source on whether, and for which holidays, the day is paid to someone on a daily wage who did not work. That is why we give you no amount, and why the Sunday and holiday calculator counts only the days you worked.

The answer matters for your budget. If your workplace closes on the holiday, October has 21 days of work instead of 22 in a 5-day week. If the day is not paid in your job, the month brings one daily wage less. If it is paid, it brings the same.

This does not mean the answer is “no”. It means you need to find it with certainty, and you know where:

1. Your contract and your sector agreement. Many sectors have a collective agreement, and some state what applies to holidays. The ones the site holds are on the Collective agreements page.
2. The payroll office, in writing. Ask whether the holiday is paid without work, and at what amount. A written answer is something you can check.
3. The Labour Inspectorate. If the answer does not convince you, the Inspectorate is the authority that can tell you what applies to your own job.

The question to the payroll office is worth making specific. Write the day, for example “Wednesday 28 October 2026”, say that you did not work because it was a public holiday, and ask whether the day is paid, at what amount and under which agreement. A question like that usually gets a specific answer, and if the answer is vague, you know you need to look further.

When the rule is checked against an official source, the site will add it here and to the calculator. Until then, keep a note of which holidays you did not work during the year and what you were paid for each.

Here is some good news. In a 5-day week, leave counts only working days, Monday to Friday. Public holidays during your leave do not count as days of leave2,5. So a holiday inside your leave gives you a day for free.

If you take leave from Monday 26 to Friday 30 October 2026, there are five working days. Wednesday 28 is a holiday, so you use 4 days of leave. With the weekends before and after, you are away from work for 9 days in a row.

The same trick works at Christmas. If you take leave from Monday 21 to Thursday 31 December 2026, there are nine days from Monday to Friday. Friday 25 is a holiday, so you use 8 days of leave. 1 January 2027 falls on a Friday and is also a holiday, so you return to work on Monday 4 January. With the weekends before and after, you are away for 16 days in a row, from Saturday 19 December to Sunday 3 January.

Days of leave are paid as normal, and they also bring the holiday allowance. For how many days you are entitled to this year, see the article How many days of leave you get this year and the Days of leave calculator.

Since holidays on weekdays make leave cheaper, it is worth knowing now where they fall. Two remain until the end of 2026: 25 December, a Friday, and the 26th, a Saturday. In 2027 the 9 holidays fall like this:

The table carries two messages. The first is good: 1 and 6 January, 25 March and 28 October fall on weekdays, and each makes a week of leave one day cheaper. 25 March and 28 October are Thursdays, so one day of leave on the Friday gives you four days in a row.

The second is less good. Four holidays of 2027 fall on a Saturday or Sunday: 1 May, 15 August and both days of Christmas. For anyone on a 5-day week and a monthly salary, these holidays change nothing, in pay or in leave. They are simply weekends.

A part-time salary is monthly too, so the same applies as for full time. If the holiday falls on a day you would have worked, your salary stays the same. If it falls on a day you do not work, nothing changes either.

If you work the holiday, your daily pay is your part-time salary divided by 25, and the premium is 75% of it. On the minimum wage for four hours a day, the salary is €460, the daily pay €18.40 and the holiday premium €13.80.

The exception is anyone who works part time on a daily wage, a few days a week. For them, what we said about daily wages applies: the days they work are certainly paid, and the holidays they do not work need a check in the contract.

It happens often: the holiday was a day off, but in the morning the phone rings. If you work, the day changes category, and the rule for work on a holiday applies: 75% on top of the daily pay for anyone on a salary, the day plus 75% for anyone on a daily wage1.

On a salary of €1,150, such a day brings €34.50 on top of your salary. If you are called in on both days of Christmas and on New Year’s Day, the three days bring €103.50.

Before you say yes, ask two things: which amount the premium will count on, and how the hours will be recorded. The law counts the premium on the legal daily wage, so if your salary is above the minimum or your agreement, the answer changes the amount. The article on working on 28 October explains all of this in detail.

If you are called in for only a few hours, to cover a shift or a delivery, the holiday has become a working day for those hours. The calculator counts whole days, so ask the payroll office how they will count the premium for your hours, and note when you started and when you left.

On a monthly salary, there is one check. The line of the basic salary should show your salary in full, with no deduction for the day of the holiday. If you see a line for “absence” or “unjustified absence” on that day, ask for an explanation.

On a daily wage, you count the days. Look at how many working days the payslip shows and compare them with your rota. If you worked the holiday, the day should be included, with the premium on a separate line. If you did not work it, see whether there is a line for the holiday, and if there is not, ask on the basis of your contract.

If you are on a salary and the payslip shows 25 insurance days, do not worry. Those are the 25 insurance days of a monthly salary, not the days you worked. You will see the same in October, with its holiday, and in November, without one.

In both cases, keep the rota of the month. It is the simplest way to know what you should see.