The dates of next year’s bank holidays have been confirmed.
Bank holidays are a national public holiday and they are usually spread out across the calendar. They include seasonal events such as Christmas, Easter and the New Year.
Most shops shut, schools will close, places of business generally shut down and public transport is reduced on bank holidays. In England and Wales there are two bank holidays left this calendar year, those for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, meaning we get a ‘substitute’ day in the week instead. As Boxing Day, which is also a bank holiday, falls on a Monday it means the substitute Christmas bank holiday will be on Tuesday, December 27.
This is also the case for the first bank holiday of 2023, with Monday, January 2 being declared a substitute day for New Year’s Day which also falls on a Sunday. Meanwhile, Easter in 2023 being celebrated in early April with, as is tradition, both Good Friday and Easter Monday, on April 7 and April 10 respectively, being bank holidays,
There will be three bank holidays in May 2023 – May 1, May 8 and May 29 to be exact. The extra May bank holiday, on Monday May 8, is to mark the coronation of King Charles III.
Downing Street confirmed the date of the holiday, which takes place two days after the crowning at Westminster Abbey on Saturday May 6. The announcement followed calls from Tory MPs for the government to either move the early May bank holiday from May 1 to coincide with the coronation weekend or to declare an extra day off.
There is another bank holiday in summer, on August 28, before next year’s festive period.
