Alberta Stat Holidays 2026: General Holiday Dates and Holiday Pay

Alberta’s law calls them general holidays, and the province’s own guide notes they are also referred to as statutory holidays. In 2026 Alberta has 9 general holidays, listed below with their dates, and an employer can recognize more days as holidays. To be paid for one, you need at least 30 workdays with the same employer in the 12 months before it, and what you get depends on whether the holiday falls on a regular day of work for you and whether you work it.

What are Alberta's stat holidays in 2026?

The Employment Standards Code sets out the general holidays and who is entitled to them. If your employer’s industry is federally regulated, different rules apply; our Canada-wide stat holiday page covers them.

What are Alberta's stat holidays in 2027?

Next year's dates, with the optional days marked:

Which days are optional in Alberta?

Easter Monday, Heritage Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Boxing Day are not among Alberta’s general holidays: the tables mark them as optional, and Alberta lists them as optional holidays commonly recognized by employers. An optional holiday can be any day an employer chooses to recognize.

What matters for your pay is whether your employer recognizes the day. Alberta says that when an employer recognizes an additional holiday, “all employment standards rules related to holiday pay apply” to it, and that employees may ask their employer whether it recognizes any.

Who qualifies for general holiday pay in Alberta?

Most employees get general holiday pay when the holiday is a regular day of work for them, or when they work a holiday that is not a regular day of work. The conditions:

• You worked for the same employer for at least 30 workdays in the 12 months before the holiday.
• You are not entitled if you were absent when required or scheduled to work on the holiday, or absent the last scheduled day before or the first scheduled day after it without your employer's consent.
• A day is a regular day of work if you worked on that weekday at least 5 times in the previous 9 weeks.
• Some employees are not eligible, including automobile and similar salespersons, and others listed by Alberta.

A regular day of work is a day you normally work: on a Monday-to-Friday schedule, Monday to Friday are regular days and the weekend is not. If your days change from week to week, some days can still be regular days, and the regular-day condition in the list decides which, a rule Alberta says is sometimes called “the 5 of 9 rule”. It is applied again for each holiday, so a weekday that counted for one holiday may not count for the next.

Holiday pay is worked out the same way for full-time, part-time and casual workers, and the rules are the same whether the business is open or closed that day.

How much is general holiday pay in Alberta?

If the holiday is a regular day of work and you don’t work it, you are owed your average daily wage. It is worked out like this:

• Average daily wage is your wages divided by the number of days you worked.
• The employer picks one 4-week period: the 4 weeks immediately before the holiday, or the 4 weeks ending on the last day of the pay period before the holiday.
• Overtime pay is not counted as wages in this calculation.
• If you are salaried and the holiday falls on a regular workday, you may receive the day off and your full salary for the day.

Bonuses tied to performance (your hours, output or efficiency) count as wages. Our Canada-wide stat holiday page sets Alberta’s formula beside the other provinces'.

What if you work on the general holiday in Alberta?

What you get for working the holiday depends on whether it is a regular day of work for you, and on a regular day your employer chooses between two options:

• If you work on a regular day of work, the employer can pay you 1.5 times what you would normally earn for the hours worked and also pay your average daily wage.
• Or the employer can provide a future day off with your average daily wage for that day.
• If the holiday is not a regular day of work and you work it, you are paid 1.5 times what you would normally earn for the hours worked.
• If it is not a regular day of work and you do not work, you are not eligible for holiday pay or a day in lieu.
• If a general holiday falls during your vacation, you can take a day off with pay on the first scheduled working day after it.

The hours you work on the holiday don’t count toward that week’s overtime when you are paid time and a half for them. If your employer picks the future day off, which Alberta also calls a day in lieu, the holiday is treated as a standard workday and overtime is worked out as usual. Our overtime rules page has Alberta’s thresholds.

If you are paid by incentive pay, such as commissions, flat rates, mileage or piecework, the hourly rate used for holiday hours must be at least the minimum wage that applies to you, and if you are paid entirely by incentive pay, your rate is taken to be the minimum wage. See minimum wage in Canada.

What if the holiday falls on your day off, during vacation, or the job ends?

The list above covers a holiday on a day that is not a regular day of work and one that falls during your vacation. Instead of the first scheduled working day after your vacation, you and your employer can agree on another workday before your next annual vacation; either way the day off is paid at your average daily wage. Our vacation pay page covers vacation time and pay.

If your job ends before you have taken a day in lieu, what you are owed depends on who ended it. If your employer ended it, for each day not taken you are owed your average daily wage plus time and a half for all the hours you worked on the holiday, less what you were already paid in wages and overtime for that day. If you quit, you are owed your average daily wage for each day not taken.

Who isn’t covered in Alberta?

Alberta lists these workers as not eligible for general holidays or general holiday pay:

• salespeople selling cars, trucks, buses, recreational vehicles, manufactured homes, farm machinery, or heavy construction and road equipment
• registered or licensed salespeople selling investments, stocks or bonds
• authorized real estate salespeople, and people selling homes for the builder of those homes
• licensed insurance salespeople paid entirely by commission
• commission salespeople who take orders mainly away from the employer’s premises (route salespeople aside)
• film and video extras
• counsellors and instructors at charitable or not-for-profit camps
• direct sellers aged 16 or older working for licensed direct sellers
• teachers

Construction workers and farm and ranch workers have different rules. Construction workers get general holiday pay of 3.6% of wages from the start of the job, but no right to the days off. Alberta’s farm and ranch exceptions page sets out theirs.

Alberta’s employment standards cover employees who do their work in Alberta. They don’t apply to contractors or the self-employed; if you think you have been wrongly treated as a contractor, see misclassified as a contractor and contractor vs employee.

What if you weren’t paid for a general holiday?

Your pay stub shows what you were paid for the pay period. If you think your employer isn’t following the Employment Standards Code, you can make a complaint. Alberta sets this time limit for complaints:

• While employed, or up to 6 months after your last day

Alberta’s complaint page explains how to file, and our guides to employment standards complaints and unpaid wages cover the steps.

Related pages

• Stat holidays across Canada: the other provinces, the territories and federally regulated workers
• Vacation pay and overtime pay
• Minimum wage in Canada
• Bank holiday hours and TSX market holidays
• All workplace rights guides: pay, leave, the end of a job and complaints