Malta has fourteen public holidays, which is a lot by European standards and one of the quieter reasons people like working here. Three of them fall at a weekend in 2026, and what happens next is the part newcomers usually get wrong.
You do not lose the ones that land on a weekend
Sette Giugno falls on a Sunday this year, the Feast of the Assumption on a Saturday, and Republic Day on a Sunday again. In a lot of countries that would simply be bad luck. Here those days are added back to your leave entitlement in hours, so the year still contains the same amount of time off.
On a standard forty hour week the basic entitlement is 192 hours. Three weekend holidays add another 24 hours, which brings 2026 to 216 hours, or twenty seven days. If your employer has quietly given you twenty four days and called it done, that is worth a conversation.
Half of them are religious feasts
Five church feasts became national holidays. These are St Paul’s Shipwreck in February and St Joseph in March.
The others are St Peter and St Paul at the end of June, the Assumption in August and the Immaculate Conception in December. The other half are political: Freedom Day, Sette Giugno, Victory Day, Independence Day and Republic Day.
Between them they tell you most of what you need to know about how the country sees itself.
What closes
Banks and government offices shut. Buses run a Sunday timetable, which is thinner than people expect and catches out anyone relying on a bus to the airport.
Most shops in the tourist areas stay open and most village shops do not. Every Heritage Malta site closes completely on 1 January, Good Friday, and 24, 25 and 31 December.
That is a separate list from the public holidays, so check both.
The busiest weekend in August
The fifteenth of August is not just a day off. It is the Assumption.
Eight or nine parishes celebrate at once, which makes it the biggest festa weekend of the Maltese year. Roads close, villages fill and fireworks go on late.
If you are trying to get somewhere that weekend, plan around it. If you are not, go and watch, because there is nothing else like it.
The full list of dates is on the site, and the calendar shows which parishes are celebrating when.
