Lithuania

Lithuania - sixteen public holidays, two restoration days, and a calendar with no substitute weekends

Lithuania has sixteen public holidays under the Labour Code, including both 16 February and 11 March as restoration days, plus midsummer. No public holiday is moved to a weekday when it falls on a weekend.

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We do not yet have a live calendar for this country. See the editorial summary below for the customary holidays.

Today in Lithuania

Friday, October 23, 2026

No federal or major public holiday observed today in this country.

Lithuania

Lithuania observes sixteen public holidays under Article 123 of the Labour Code. It is a calendar built out of Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish feasts and two twentieth-century restoration commemorations - and it has no substitute-day mechanism, so roughly a third of the nominal holidays vanish into weekends.

The sixteen public holidays

  • New Year - 1 January
  • Independence Day - 16 February
  • Restoration of Independence Day - 11 March
  • Easter Sunday
  • Easter Monday
  • Labour Day - 1 May
  • Mother's Day - the first Sunday in May
  • Father's Day - the first Sunday in June
  • St John's Day - 24 June
  • Statehood Day - 6 July
  • Assumption of the Virgin - 15 August
  • All Saints - 1 November
  • All Souls - 2 November
  • Christmas Eve - 24 December
  • Christmas Day - 25 December
  • Second day of Christmas - 26 December

Two restoration days

Lithuania is unusual in marking the restoration of its independence twice, and both dates are statutory. The earlier, 16 February, commemorates the 1918 Act of Independence adopted by the Council of Lithuania as German troops left at the end of the First World War. The later, 11 March, commemorates the 1990 reassertion of independence from the Soviet Union, the scene of the Singing Revolution.

The pairing is not a duplication. 1990 restored a state whose founding claim dates from 1918, and keeping February on the books is how Lithuania says so. The March day is the more visible of the two in practice, but a calendar that carries only one of them is missing a public holiday - and most short international calendars do exactly that.

No substitute weekends

Lithuania does not move a public holiday that falls on a weekend. The State Labour Inspectorate is explicit about it: a public holiday coinciding with a regular rest day is not transferred to the next working day, and no additional day off is granted. This distinguishes Lithuania from much of the rest of the EU, where a substitution rule is common.

The consequence is easy to miss when a calendar lists a flat set of holidays. In 2026 six of the sixteen individual dates fell at a weekend and disappeared into it. So the statutory list is a reliable statement about what is a holiday and an unreliable statement about how many days off anyone gets.

Good Friday is a working day

This catches people out every year, particularly visitors from Poland, Germany or the Nordic states, where Good Friday is a public holiday. In Lithuania it is an ordinary working day. Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are both statutory, so the Easter period is two public holidays with Good Friday sitting inside the weekend rather than an extra day off beside it.

The same applies to Užgavėnės, the Lithuanian Shrove Tuesday celebration, which is culturally central and not statutory.

Mother's Day and Father's Day

Both are statutory, which makes Lithuania unusual in the opposite direction to Good Friday. Mother's Day falls on the first Sunday in May and Father's Day on the first Sunday in June. Both are public holidays - and both are defined as Sundays, so they never produce an extra day off. They are in the Labour Code as holidays and they are days off by definition, but a week containing one is not a four-day week.

Midsummer and All Souls

The two days at the centre of the Lithuanian year are midsummer and the dead. Joninės - Rasos, Kupolė - on 24 June is the solstice festival of bonfires, wreaths and the search for the midnight fern flower, and it is one of only a handful of genuinely secular public days in a calendar otherwise built from religious feasts. All Saints on 1 November and All Souls on 2 November form a two-day commemoration of the dead; All Souls only became a public holiday in 2020, which makes it the most recent addition to the Lithuanian calendar.

Major holiday briefs on this page

2026 public holidays (live)

Year calendar pulled live from national gazettes. Refreshes hourly. Editorial notes and contested holidays are above.

We do not yet have a live calendar for this country. See the editorial summary below for the customary holidays.

Frequently asked questions

How many public holidays does Lithuania have?

Sixteen, set by Article 123 of the Labour Code. The list runs from New Year on 1 January to the second day of Christmas on 26 December, and includes both Easter Sunday and Easter Monday as separate statutory days. It also includes two restoration-of-independence commemorations, on 16 February and 11 March, which commemorate genuinely different events and should not be collapsed into one.

Does Lithuania substitute a weekday for a weekend public holiday?

No. The State Labour Inspectorate is explicit that a public holiday coinciding with a regular rest day is not transferred to the next working day, and no extra day off is granted. Lithuania does not operate the substitution mechanism used in some other EU states. The practical effect is large: in 2026 six of the sixteen individual public holiday dates fell at a weekend and disappeared into it, so the nominal count of sixteen is well above the number of days actually off.

What is the difference between 16 February and 11 March?

They commemorate two different declarations of independence. 16 February marks the 1918 Act of Independence, adopted unanimously by the Council of Lithuania as German troops withdrew at the end of the First World War. 11 March, the Restoration of Independence Day, marks 11 March 1990, when Lithuania reasserted independence from the Soviet Union during the Singing Revolution. Both are public holidays. A calendar that lists only the March day is missing one.

Is Good Friday a public holiday in Lithuania?

No. Good Friday is an ordinary working day in Lithuania, which is a genuine difference from neighbouring Poland, Germany and the Nordic states and a frequent source of confusion for visitors. Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are both public holidays, so the Easter weekend is three days with Good Friday inside it rather than the statutory four-day arrangement common elsewhere. Užgavėnės, the Lithuanian Shrove Tuesday, is also not statutory.

Notable holidays

Holidays with full briefs in Lithuania

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Jun

Joninės - Lithuania’s midsummer, celebrated on 24 June with bonfires, wreaths and the search for a fern flower

Joninės, also called Rasos or the Dew Holiday, is Lithuania’s national midsummer festival on 24 June. A public holiday, it centres on bonfires, floating flower wreaths, the search for the midnight fern flower and dancing through the flames.

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Feb

Restoration of the State Day (Lithuania) - 16 February 1918, the declaration of independence and one of Europe’s two state commemorations

Restoration of the State Day marks 16 February 1918, when Lithuania’s council declared independence from German and Russian occupation. It is one of two Lithuanian days marking state restoration; 11 March marks the 1990 return.

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