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.
| Closed on | Holiday | Last business day before | Next business day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, January 1, 2025 | New Year's Day | Tue, Dec 31 | Thu, Jan 2 |
| Friday, April 18, 2025 | Good Friday | Thu, Apr 17 | Tue, Apr 22 |
| Monday, April 21, 2025 | Easter Monday | Thu, Apr 17 | Tue, Apr 22 |
| Monday, May 5, 2025 | Early May bank holiday | Fri, May 2 | Tue, May 6 |
| Monday, May 26, 2025 | Spring bank holiday | Fri, May 23 | Tue, May 27 |
| Monday, August 25, 2025 | Summer bank holiday | Fri, Aug 22 | Tue, Aug 26 |
| Thursday, December 25, 2025 | Christmas Day | Wed, Dec 24 | Mon, Dec 29 |
| Friday, December 26, 2025 | Boxing Day | Wed, Dec 24 | Mon, 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
| Month | Business days |
|---|---|
| January | 22 |
| February | 20 |
| March | 21 |
| April | 20 |
| May | 20 |
| June | 21 |
| July | 23 |
| August | 20 |
| September | 22 |
| October | 23 |
| November | 20 |
| December | 21 |
| 2025 | 253 |
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
curl -s 'https://payopskit.com/api/v1/holidays?calendar=uk-ew&year=2025'{
"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
UK, other years
Other calendars, 2025
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.