Do You Get Paid for Federal Holidays?

What a federal holiday actually is

The eleven federal holidays are days on which federal government offices close and federal employees are paid. That is the whole legal effect. They are not national holidays in the sense many countries have — there is no general requirement that anyone else closes or pays.

The eleven: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Banks generally follow the same calendar because the Federal Reserve does, which is why transfers do not settle on these days even though the shops are open.

What private employers must do

Under federal law, essentially nothing:

No requirement to close. Retail, hospitality and healthcare routinely do not.
No requirement to pay for a holiday you did not work. Paid holidays are a benefit, not an entitlement.
No requirement to pay extra for working one. Time and a half on Thanksgiving is company policy or a union agreement, not federal law.
No requirement to give a day off in lieu when a holiday falls at a weekend.

A few states add requirements in specific sectors — Rhode Island and Massachusetts have historically had rules affecting retail on certain days — but these are narrow exceptions rather than a general pattern.

In practice most salaried private-sector jobs give six to eleven paid holidays, and hourly roles in customer-facing industries give fewer. Your handbook is the authority, not the calendar.

Holiday pay and overtime do not mix the way people expect

This is the part that costs people money in a holiday week.

Paid holiday hours are not hours worked. They do not count toward the 40-hour overtime threshold, because the threshold counts time actually worked.

So a week with 8 hours of holiday pay and 36 hours worked is 44 paid hours and no overtime — the 36 worked hours never reach 40. Many people expect overtime on the four hours above 40 and are surprised.

Equally, if your employer pays time and a half for working a holiday, that premium is a policy payment. It generally does not raise your regular rate, and premium already paid is not counted twice when overtime is calculated.

The observance rule

When a fixed-date holiday falls at a weekend, the federal calendar shifts the observance: a Saturday holiday is observed the Friday before, a Sunday holiday the Monday after. This is why Independence Day 2026, falling on a Saturday, is observed on Friday 3 July.

Floating holidays — those defined as "the third Monday in January" and so on — always land on a weekday and never shift.

Both the business day calculator and the payroll calendar compute observed dates rather than using a fixed list, so they stay correct as years change — and both name the holiday responsible when it affects your answer.

If a payday falls on one

Almost every employer pays on the previous business day. Paying early is safe; paying late risks breaching state pay-interval rules. The payroll calendar applies that rule and flags each date it moved, with the reason.

Questions worth asking your employer

Which days are paid holidays, exactly? The list is often shorter than the federal one.
Is there a premium for working one, and at what rate?
What happens when a holiday falls at a weekend — a day in lieu, or nothing?
Do part-time staff receive holiday pay, and pro-rated how?
Is there a waiting period before new employees qualify?

All of this should be in the handbook. If it is not written down anywhere, that is worth knowing before a holiday week rather than after it.

Do you get paid for federal holidays?