Festive calendar for 2016

A few years ago, the Spanish Government announced plans to do away with the especially long holiday weekends that often led to a number of working weeks throughout the year only lasting for three days.

That was supposed to be the end of the ‘macropuente’, which effectively caused havoc to businesses and resulted in a lack of productivity, according to President Rajoy.

The ‘macropuentes’ survived 2015 and it has now been announced that they will continue in 2016 as well. Hooooray!

This means that several weeks next year will only consist of three working days, or even less.

Earlier this week, the director of the Economics Office of Moncloa in Madrid admitted that there hadn’t been much interest in going ahead with Rajoy’s idea of moving some national holidays to a Monday or Friday, so this proposal, it seems, has now been shelved for good.

Although the labour calendar set by the Department for Employment for 2016 has not officially been approved yet, all of Spain’s autonomous regions have already published theirs.

Christmas Day this year falls on a Friday, which means that employees could end up with almost two weeks of holiday just by booking Monday 28 December – Thursday 31 December and Monday 4 January – Tuesday 5 January off, as Wednesday 6 is also a holiday (Three Kings). This would mean 13 days off work just by booking 6 days’ holiday. By taking the following Thursday and Friday as holiday too, this would extend the Christmas period even further, if your employer allows it!

The majority of holidays do depend on the regional governments themselves, but there a 4 national holidays which are set in stone by the central office in Madrid: Christmas, New Year, 1 May and 12 October. The rest are celebrated according to each region.

So, the dates that we all need to know for next year are as follows:

New Year’s Day: Friday 1 January
Three Kings Day: Wednesday 6 January
Good Friday: Friday 25 March
Easter Sunday: Sunday 27 March
Labour Day: Sunday 1 May
Assumption of the Virgin: Monday 15 August
Columbus Day: Wednesday 12 October
All Saints Day: Tuesday 1 November
Constitution Day: Tuesday 6 December
Immaculate Conception Day: Thursday 8 December
Christmas Day: Sunday 25 December
Fiestas in some autonomous regions:
Monday 29 February: Andalucía
Tuesday 1 March: Balearic Islands
Saturday 19 March: Valencia and Murcia
Thursday 24 March: All except Cataluña
Monday 28 March: Balearic Islands, Cataluña, Valencia, La Rioja, Navarra, País Vasco
Saturday 23 April: Aragón and Castilla y León
Monday 2 May: Andalucía, Aragón, Canary Islands, Castilla y León and Madrid
Monday 16 May: Cataluña
Tuesday 17 May: Galicia
Thursday 26 May: Castilla-La Mancha
Monday 30 May: Canary Islands
Tuesday 31 May: Castilla-La Mancha
Thursday 9 June: Murcia and La Rioja
Friday 24 June: Galicia and Cataluña
Monday 25 July: Galicia, Madrid, Navarra, La Rioja and País Vasco
Thursday 28 July: Cantabria
Thursday 8 September: Asturias and Extremadura
Thursday 15 September: Cantabria
Friday 7 October: País Vasco
Saturday 3 December: Navarra
Monday 26 December: Andalucía, Aragón, Baleares, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Cataluña, Valencia, Madrid, Navarra and Murcia

Source: www.abc.es, www.calendario-365.es