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LIVING IN ITALY

Calendar: How to make the most of Italy’s public holidays in 2023

Italy gets a good number of public holidays, but they sometimes fall on a weekend. Here are the dates to plan for next year.

Published: 2 December 2022 09:52 CET
Updated: 8 December 2022 17:46 CET
Bormio's ski resort in Italy
Italy has 11 national public holidays but Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are not among them. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Italy is known for having a relatively generous number of public holidays – the highest of any EU country other than Austria, which has 13. 

Italian residents enjoy 11 national public holidays, plus a local holiday for the patron saint of their cities (for instance St Ambrose in Milan, St Mark in Venice, St John in Florence, etc.) which may also mean a day off work for some.

READ ALSO: Why do Milan residents get a day off on December 7th?

But, as some Italian speakers might say, ‘non è tutto oro quel che luccica’ (all that glitters is not gold). All national holidays in Italy are taken on the day they fall on that year rather than being moved to the nearest Monday as is the case in some countries, including the UK.

This means that if a certain holiday is on a Saturday or a Sunday, there’s no extra day off.

It also means that there are ‘good’ holiday years and ‘bad’ ones, and, while 2022 wasn’t a particularly good one – as many as four public holidays fell on a weekend day – 2023 only has one such holiday: New Year’s Day, which will fall on Sunday, January 1st.

Deck chair on Italian seaside

Italian residents will get five three-day weekends in 2023 thanks to public national holidays. Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP

2023 holiday calendar

  • January 1, 2023 (New Year’s Day): Sunday
  • January 6, 2023 (Epiphany): Friday
  • April 10, 2023 (Easter Monday): Monday
  • April 25, 2023 (Liberation Day): Tuesday
  • May 1, 2023 (Labour Day): Monday
  • June 2, 2023 (Italian Republic Day): Friday
  • August 15, 2023 (Ferragosto): Tuesday
  • November 1, 2023 (All Saints’ Day): Wednesday
  • December 8, 2023 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception): Friday
  • December 25, 2023 (Christmas Day): Monday
  • December 26, 2023 (St Stephen’s Day): Tuesday

As shown by the above list, Christmas Eve (December 24th) and New Year’s Eve (December 31st) are not official public holidays in Italy, but many local companies do give their staff both days off as a gesture of goodwill. 

That said, in 2023 Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve will both fall on a Sunday, so residents will already be home from work. 

Like both ‘Eves’, Easter Sunday is also not considered a public holiday, but, once again, residents are already home from work on the day given that it falls on a Sunday every year.  

2023 ‘bridges’ and long weekends

Whether or not a certain year is a good one for holidays also depends on the number of ‘bridges’ available.

For the uninitiated, ‘fare il ponte‘ (‘to do the bridge’) is the noble art of taking an extra day off when a public holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday – the most audacious might do this with a Wednesday holiday too.

Sadly, 2023 doesn’t provide a lot of opportunities to do this. There are only two possible bridges: one for Liberation Day, falling on Tuesday, April 25th and one for Ferragosto, on Tuesday, August 15th.

But, on a more positive note, six of next year’s public holidays will fall either on a Monday or a Friday, giving residents five three-day weekends and a four-day one – Christmas Day (falling on Monday) is immediately followed by St Stephen’s Day on Tuesday.

Italian non-holiday holidays

There are seven dates in Italy’s calendar that are considered official but not public holidays, meaning you don’t get a day off. 

These are known as ‘solennità civili’ (civil feasts) and include National Unity Day on the first Sunday of November, the day of Italy’s patron saints Francesco and Caterina on October 4th, and the anniversary of the unification of Italy on March 17th.

Display from Italian Air Force for Italy's Unity Day

National Unity Day, which is celebrated every year on the first Sunday of November, is one of Italy’s ‘civil feasts’. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP

That’s in addition to nearly 30 national and international days of commemoration or celebration that Italy recognises, including Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th), Europe Day (May 9th) and Christopher Columbus Day (October 12th). 

Much like the previously mentioned solennità civili, none of the above will get you a day off.

Other holidays

If you’re an employee in Italy, you’re entitled to paid holiday time, and the very minimum allowance is four weeks (or 20 days) a year – that’s 18 days less than in Austria, which leads the EU pack in minimum paid leave.

That said, many Italian contracts, particularly those for state employees, allow for five weeks (or 25 days) of paid leave per year. 

It’s also worth noting that, by law, employees must take at least two weeks of paid leave in a row and all paid leave accumulated over the course of a year must be taken within 18 months from the end of that year.

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LIVING IN ITALY

Why isn’t Pentecost Monday a public holiday in Italy?

Italy is known for being a particularly religious country, so why isn't Pentecost Monday a public holiday here?

Published: 17 May 2024 14:21 CEST
Why isn’t Pentecost Monday a public holiday in Italy?

May 20th will mark Pentecost Monday (or Lunedì di Pentecoste in Italian) – an important observance in the Christian calendar which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’s disciples.

Pentecost Monday is a movable feast (or festa mobile) in the Christian liturgical calendar, meaning that its date changes each year depending on when Easter is celebrated: Pentecost – which marks the exact day the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples – falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter, with Pentecost Monday following right after.

But while Pentecost Monday (also known as Whit Monday elsewhere) is a public holiday and therefore a non-working day in a number of European countries, including Austria, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland, Italy – a country known for being overwhelmingly Catholic – doesn’t consider the date a festa nazionale.

But why is that so?

Pentecost Monday was long a public holiday in Italy. In fact, the Tuesday following Pentecost Sunday was also a national holiday up until the late 18th century. 

But in 1977 the Italian government then led by Giulio Andreotti removed Pentecost Monday along with four other Catholic-related feasts (these included St Joseph’s Day on March 19th and the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29th) from its list of public holidays. 

The official reason behind the change was to speed up public administration work and increase businesses’ productivity as the Italian calendar had featured nearly 20 different national holidays up to that point.

It could be argued however that a nationwide shift towards secularism in the second half of the 20th century also played a non-negligible role in the change.

That said, a number of political parties and Catholic associations have asked for the holiday to be restored over the years, with a proposal backed by the League party and centre-left Democrazia Solidale making it all the way to parliament in 2016 but being ultimately scrapped. 

Pentecost Monday isn’t the only important date on the Christian calendar not marked with a public holiday in Italy. 

READ ALSO: How to make the most of Italy’s public holidays in 2024

Good Friday may be a holiday elsewhere in Europe, but not in Italy, where it’s seen as a day of mourning. Ascension Day, which marks the day Jesus ascended into heaven and falls on the sixth Thursday after Easter every year, is also not a public holiday in the country.

Curiously, while Pentecost Monday is not a public holiday on the Italian calendar, there is one area of the country where the observance does grant residents a day off: South Tyrol (or Alto Adige), in northern Italy.

South Tyrol, which includes the city of Bolzano, is an autonomous Italian province, meaning that local authorities have the freedom to decide on a number of economic, political and civil matters, including the local holiday calendar. 

If you’re one of South Tyrol’s 530,000 residents, you will enjoy a three-day weekend this week.

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