All employees are entitled to a paid day off on a public holiday if it would otherwise be a working day for them. As the coming four Christmas and New Year public holidays fall on weekends, the special rules in the Holidays Act 2003 for the transfer of those public holidays will apply this year, as follows:

• if the Saturday and/or Sunday would otherwise be working days for an employee, the employee will observe the public holidays on that day/those days, but
  
  
• if the Saturday and/or Sunday are not otherwise working days for an employee, the public holidays will be transferred to the following Monday and/or Tuesday respectively.

Payment for a public holiday depends on whether the employee does or does not work on that day:

• if the employee does not work on a public holiday or substitute public holiday and does not normally work on that day, there is no entitlement to any payment
  
  
• if the employee does not work on a public holiday or substitute public holiday but would otherwise have worked on that day, pay is due as if the employee had worked on that day
  
  
• if the employee works on a public holiday or substitute public holiday, payment must be at least at time and half for the hours worked.

Examples

1. An employee who normally works on Saturday and Sunday would observe the public holidays on 25/26 December and 1/2 January. For any of those days that the employee
   
   
   • does not work, the pay is the normal day's pay,
   • does work, the pay is at time and a half.
     
     

2. An employee who normally works Monday to Friday would observe the public holidays on 27/28 December and 3/4 January. For any of those days that the employee
   
   
   • does not work, the pay is the normal day's pay,
   • does work, the pay is at time and a half.
     
     

   No pay is due for the 25/26 December and 1/2 January.
   
   

3. An employee who works Tuesday to Saturday would observe the public holidays on the 25/28 December and 1/4 January. The employee does not work on Sunday, so the substitute days for the Sundays are 28 December and 4 January. For any of those days that the employee
   
   
   • does not work, the pay is the normal day's pay,
   • does work, the pay is at time and a half.
     
     

   No pay is due for the 26/27 December and 2/3 January.
   
   

4. An employee who works Wednesday to Friday would have no entitlement to pay if away from work on any of those days.

   If the employer pays contractual "penal rates" for work performed on public holidays, those penal rates are removed before the statutory time and a half is calculated. The rate that is actually paid is the higher of the statutory and the contractual calculation for the day.

A number of Fact Sheets is available with more detail on all aspects of pay for public holidays.

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Employment Relations Service