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UK bank holidays (England and Wales) · 2025

UK bank holidays 2025: England and Wales.

8 weekday closures in 2025, leaving 253 business days. Bacs and CHAPS process only on these business days; Faster Payments run every day.

UK bank holidays 2025

Bank holidays in England and Wales come from the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 and royal proclamations. UK payment systems such as Bacs and CHAPS don’t process on them.

UK bank holidays (England and Wales) holidays in 2025, with the banking days before and after each
Closed onHolidayLast business day beforeNext business day
Wednesday, January 1, 2025New Year's DayTue, Dec 31Thu, Jan 2
Friday, April 18, 2025Good FridayThu, Apr 17Tue, Apr 22
Monday, April 21, 2025Easter MondayThu, Apr 17Tue, Apr 22
Monday, May 5, 2025Early May bank holidayFri, May 2Tue, May 6
Monday, May 26, 2025Spring bank holidayFri, May 23Tue, May 27
Monday, August 25, 2025Summer bank holidayFri, Aug 22Tue, Aug 26
Thursday, December 25, 2025Christmas DayWed, Dec 24Mon, Dec 29
Friday, December 26, 2025Boxing DayWed, Dec 24Mon, Dec 29

What a closing day does to payments

  • Bacs and CHAPS don’t process payments. The Bacs cycle counts working days, so a bank holiday adds a day to it.
  • Faster Payments run around the clock, bank holidays included.
  • Substitute days: when New Year’s Day, Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a weekend, the next weekday (or two) becomes the bank holiday instead.
  • Scotland and Northern Ireland have bank holidays of their own; this page is the England and Wales list.
  • One-off bank holidays (for a coronation or a jubilee, say) are proclaimed by the monarch and can’t be computed in advance; check gov.uk for years ahead.

Need a date some business days out? The business day calculator does the math on this calendar.

Business days per month, 2025

Business days per month in 2025 on the UK bank holidays (England and Wales) calendar
MonthBusiness days
January22
February20
March21
April20
May20
June21
July23
August20
September22
October23
November20
December21
2025253

How the dates are worked out

  • New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the early May bank holiday (1st Monday of May), the spring bank holiday (last Monday of May), the summer bank holiday (last Monday of August), Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
  • New Year’s Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day on a weekend move to the next weekday(s).
  • One-off bank holidays proclaimed since 1995 are included for their years.
  • One-off bank holidays are proclaimed by the monarch and cannot be computed in advance; check gov.uk/bank-holidays for years ahead.
  • Scotland and Northern Ireland have different bank holidays.

UK 2025 holidays from code or an AI agent

REST · GET · no key
curl -s 'https://payopskit.com/api/v1/holidays?calendar=uk-ew&year=2025'
MCP · tools/call · list_bank_holidays
{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "list_bank_holidays",
    "arguments": {
      "calendar": "uk-ew",
      "year": 2025
    }
  }
}

The MCP server is at /mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key); the API and MCP docs show how to connect Claude, Cursor or VS Code.

Add format=ics to the REST call for the calendar file; business_day_math answers “is it a business day”, next, previous, add and count.

Other calendars and years

Source: gov.uk bank holidays for England and Wales, computed by rule plus the known proclamations. Dates are computed by the calendar’s rules for any year, so future years can change if a holiday is added; unscheduled closures are not included. Informational only.