How many bank holidays do employees living in Northern Ireland get?

Usually there are ten bank holidays (or public holidays) for people living in Northern Ireland per year.

Northern Ireland has the most bank holidays in the UK with ten days a year, which is more than Scotland (nine), and England and Wales (eight).

Bank holidays in Northern Ireland 2024

What is the statutory holiday allowance in Northern Ireland, including bank holidays?

No matter where your employees live in the UK, the statutory minimum amount of holiday days a full-time employee should receive is 28 days per year. This includes the ten bank holidays, which means those living in Northern Ireland should receive a minimum of 18 additional days of annual leave. It’s illegal to give less than 28 days total leave pro rata in the UK.

What happens if the employee works on bank holidays?

It doesn’t matter if your employee works on bank holidays or not, they’re still entitled to a minimum of 28 days off pro rata – or more if that’s part of their contract. So if they do work on any bank holidays, make sure that their overall leave allowance per year doesn’t drop below whatever’s in their employee contract.

How many bank holidays do part-timers get in Northern Ireland?

Part time workers are due a pro-rata amount of whatever the full-time employee receives in total holiday days. So if they work 80% what full-timers do, they’ll receive 80% of the same holiday allowance.

Usually part-time workers will miss a few bank holidays due to their working schedule. But they’re still entitled to the same amount of time off as other colleagues working the same number of hours, it’s just that they’ll get to choose when to take the days off instead.

Therefore we advise against separating leave into bank holidays and other leave as this often leads to miscalculations, particularly for part time employees. How many days you need to allocate for bank holidays may change from year to year due to the Christmas bank holidays falling on different working days, etc. We therefore advice to give the full entitlement to employees and then inform them that if a bank holiday falls on their normal working day they must use one of their holidays on this day.

Previous bank holidays

Bank holidays for Northern Ireland in 2022

In 2022, across the UK people received two extra bank holiday days, giving people in Northern Ireland a total of 12 bank holidays in the year. This was due to the national celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on 3rd June, and then the day of her funeral on 19th September.

Bank holidays for Northern Ireland in 2023

In 2023, there was an extra bank holiday due to King Charles’ coronation celebration. The bank holidays for Northern Ireland in 2023 were:

Read on to understand how many bank holidays are in England and Wales and Scotland.