Netherlands Public Holidays 2026: Full Calendar and the Three Bridge Days Worth Taking

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title: "Netherlands Public Holidays 2026: Full Calendar and the Three Bridge Days Worth Taking"
description: "All 10 Dutch national holidays plus the two semi-holidays, the 2026 dates with weekdays, and where the bridge days hide. Written from the planning side, not a copy-pasted wiki."
tags: [travel, netherlands, holidayplanning, 2026calendar]

canonical_url: https://public-holidays.shop/en/blog/guide/netherlands-public-holidays-few-but-good

I plan trips for a living, and Dutch holidays used to annoy me. You search for "Netherlands public holidays", get a half-translated list, and still cannot tell whether anything is open on a random Tuesday. This year I sat down and worked out the whole 2026 calendar, weekday by weekday, and it turned out to be a lot easier to plan around than I expected.

The Dutch call their calendar "feestdagen" and they keep it short on purpose. Ten fixed national holidays, one of the leanest lists in Europe. For scale: Germany counts nine, France eleven, Italy twelve. No regional feasts the way Spain does them, no nationwide carnival day. The result is everyone takes the same days off, which makes planning simpler than in most countries.

The two wildcards are King's Day (Koningsdag) on April 27 and Liberation Day (Bevrijdingsdag) on May 5. King's Day is the monarch's official birthday and a genuine national party. Liberation Day became a permanent day off in 1990, and since 2000 it is observed every single year, even though the end of the German occupation only gets big events once every five years.

Here is the full 2026 calendar with weekdays:

The real planning value is in the bridge days, and 2026 has three of them. King's Day falls on a Monday, so the whole weekend is already a three-day block with nothing extra to arrange. Liberation Day lands on a Tuesday, which means taking May 4 off gives you a four-day stretch. Ascension Day sits on a Thursday, and that is the classic Dutch bridge: many workplaces close on Friday May 15 as well, producing a four-day weekend out of thin air. When you read "bridge day" in Dutch travel forums, this is the mechanism they mean.

How does the list compare to neighbors? Germany dropped Whit Monday years ago. The Netherlands kept it, and swaps the German Unity Day for King's Day in late April. Belgium has its regional feasts, the Dutch simply do not have that layer. What stands out is the Easter to Whitsun cluster: from Good Friday to Whit Monday, eight weeks holding nine days off sprinkled through them. Locals call it the "spring of days off", and for a trip it is the best season of the year.

One date every tourist should build around: Koningsdag. On April 27 the whole country dresses in orange and every city center turns into a giant free market where anyone can sell anything. Shops and trains run reduced schedules, so transport needs planning. The night before, most towns host a Koningsnacht street party. For visitors it is the easiest Dutch holiday to join, no family obligations, just street food and live music. It is also the busiest travel day of the year in the Netherlands, so book accommodation months ahead.

Short version of everything above: twelve days off in practice, three bridge opportunities in 2026, and one date to reserve around. The full guide on the source page covers the rest, including whether Liberation Day really counts as a national holiday and how the bridging system works in practice. Full calendar, weekday by weekday, is there too.