The months of April to June are characterized by a long series of public holidays: Good Friday, Easter, King’s Day, Liberation Day, Ascension and Pentecost. In addition, we still get a number of paid days off every year. Yet we have fewer days off in the Netherlands than in other European countries. How is that possible?
The Netherlands has eleven official National holidays: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday and Boxing Day, King’s Day, Liberation Day, Ascension, Whitsun and Boxing Day and Christmas and Boxing Day.
This puts our country in the middle, just below neighboring Belgium. There are celebrations twelve times a year. In Germany there are nine national holidays, but a few more are added in a number of cities or regions. With all the regional holidays added, there are seventeen times a year in Germany. Finland has the most public holidays in Europe: fifteen.
On a public holiday in the Netherlands you do not automatically have a day off. There is no law stipulating that employees are free on certain holidays. Schools and government services are often closed, but businesses are not. It is determined per sector which public holidays count as days off.
Number of public holidays per country in Western Europe
- Finland: 15
- Greece: 14
- Portugal: 13
- Sweden: 13
- Italy: 13
- Belgium: 12
- Netherlands: 11
- Denmark: 11
- France: 11
- Luxemburg: 11
- Ireland: 11
- Spain: 10
- Germany: 9
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The Dutch have the fewest paid days off
We also have a number of paid vacation days. This gives us the worst score in Western Europe. Dutch people who work 36 hours a week are entitled to eighteen days of vacation. In the surrounding countries that is four weeks, so twenty working days. The French have the most time off at thirty days.
That puts us at the very bottom. The Dutch have an average of 29 days off per year, the smallest number of neighboring countries. In France, workers have 41 days off.
An important nuance is that the number of statutory vacation days is not the only criterion. Additional vacation days are often negotiated in collective labor agreements or employees have the option to purchase additional days.
Number of statutory holidays per country in Western Europe
- France: 30
- Greece: 26
- Luxemburg: 26
- Finland: 25
- Sweden: 25
- Denmark: 25
- Portugal: 22
- Belgium: 20
- Germany: 20
- Italy: 20
- Ireland: 20
- Spain: 20
- Netherlands: 18
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‘Each year discussion about Liberation Day’
The fact that public holidays are not necessarily days off sometimes leads to heated discussions. According to employers’ association AWVN, every year around May 5, the discussion about whether Liberation Day should be a mandatory day off flares up again.
AWVN is not in favor of this. “There are already a lot of days off around that period. If an extra day is added to that, it will be a bit much,” says a spokesperson.
Isn’t in the culture to celebrate a lot
Some European holidays, such as the end of the First World War (11 November), are not celebrated in the Netherlands because we simply had nothing to do with them. The Netherlands was neutral during this war.
We do not celebrate other days, such as Labor Day (1 May), because they are not part of Dutch culture. “We have no tradition of strikes here. And the demand to be free on May 1 is not on the negotiating table,” said a spokesman for the trade union FNV.
And because of the Reformation, we celebrate fewer Church holidays than some other countries. For example, the Netherlands does not celebrate All Saints’ Day (1 November), but Belgium and Germany do.
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