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Last updated: 16.04.2024

The impact of mid-week public holidays on the work and on the annual holiday

The working time, extra pay, and holiday rules for Christmas, New Year, Epiphany and Easter are different in different collective agreement sectors. In all collective agreement sectors, there are special rules for these that differ from normal everyday work.

Mid-week public holidays are not automatically free for all. Independence Day is the only mid-week holiday that will always be free, based on the law, when the day would have otherwise been a working day for the worker.

100% extra will be paid for work that is done on Sundays, religious holidays, 1 May, and Finnish Independence Day (6 December).

Religious holidays are:

  • Christmas Day (25 December)
  • Boxing Day (26 December)
  • New Year’s Day (1 January)
  • The Epiphany (6 January)
  • Good Friday
  • Easter Sunday
  • Easter Monday
  • Ascension Day
  • Whitsunday (Pentecost)
  • Midsummer Day
  • All Saints’ Day.

1 May and Independence Day are not religious holidays, but are similar.

PAM has made an agreement with employer organisations on paid holidays that workers will get in connection with mid-week public holidays. The number of free days and the pay for them are different in different sectors. In the collective agreements made by PAM, these are called reduction in working time (työajan lyhennys).

Click here to read more about reduction in working time in different sectors.

Easter

Good Friday and Easter Monday are mid-week public holidays. Working hours, extra pay and days off during Easter differ between agreement sectors

Easter holidays and work

Rules and extra pay in different sectors

Click the link for your own sector’s collective agreement and read more about the working time rules and the extra pay system for Christmas, the New Year and Easter.

Commerce sector collective agreement
Annual leave system
Weekday public holiday system
Days off on public holiday eves

Property services sector collective agreement
Compensation for mid-week public holidays
Compensation for eves and certain Saturdays

Hotel, restaurant and leisure industry collective agreement for employees
Work on Sundays. public holidays and eves (in Finnish)
Special pubilc holidays (in Finnish)
Annual leave system (in Finnish)
Work on a day off (in Finnish)

List of all collective agreements (in Finnish)

Annual holiday around Christmas and Easter

If you are on annual holiday during weeks 52 and 1, you will have Christmas Eve and Boxing Day free without using any of the holiday days you have earned. Also, Sundays are free without using holiday days for them.

If you have annual holiday around Easter, the following days are free without using holiday days on them:

  • Good Friday
  • Easter Saturday
  • Easter Sunday
  • Easter Monday.

These days are free without using the holiday days that a worker has earned.

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