Government bank holiday update with eight more before end of 2025
The government has confirmed when and where the rest of this year's bank holidays will take place, but there are no plans to introduce any extra bank holidays in 2025
The Government has confirmed that there will be eight more bank holidays across the UK between now and the end of 2025. However, it's worth noting that different UK nations tend to have different bank holidays. For instance, the recent Easter weekend saw two bank holidays falling on Good Friday, April 18, and Easter Monday, April 21, for England and Wales, as well as Northern Ireland. In Scotland, Good Friday was a bank holiday, but Easter Monday was not.
In a new post on Wednesday, April 23, government officials moved to confirm when and where the rest of this year's bank holidays will take place.
The post explained that there will be UK-wide bank holidays on Monday, May 5, as well as Monday, May 26.
This will also be the case for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, Thursday and Friday December 25 and 26. Elsewhere, Monday, July 14, marks the Battle of the Boyne bank holiday for Northern Ireland and in Scotland, Monday, August 4, marks the Summer bank holiday.
The rest of the UK, that is England, Wales and Northern Ireland, will mark this year's Summer bank holiday on Monday, August 25. And on Monday, December 1, Scotland only will mark the St Andrew's Day bank holiday.
There were calls for an additional bank holiday this year, as Thursday, May 8, marks 80 years since VE Day. VE Day is celebrated on the same day every year, and marks the day the Allies formally accepted Germany's surrender in 1945.
Rumours were circulating at the end of 2024 that Downing Street might declare VE Day, May 8, an extra bank holiday. However, the Prime Minister's spokesperson clarified to the media in November that plans "do not include an additional bank holiday".
They stated: "We we will look to use the existing May Day bank holiday for commemorative events. We are committed to commemorating these nationally important occasions appropriately which is why we have announced more than £10m to mark them".