What are your rights if you work on a public holiday?

Public holidays generate more payroll arguments than almost any other day. Shift workers are told the holiday "fell on your off day, so it doesn't count". Retail staff are rostered for Christmas without anyone asking them. Office staff find a public holiday quietly deducted from their annual leave. Some of those practices are lawful and some are not. This guide explains your rights on a public holiday under section 18 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, the BCEA, and the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994: which days count, when you are paid without working, whether you can be made to work, who is excluded, and how to enforce your rights.

This guide is part of our Leave in South Africa: every type of leave and your rights, which links every guide on the topic.

The arithmetic of holiday pay, including the "whichever is greater" comparison, is set out in our Sunday and public holiday pay calculator. This guide focuses on the rights and the disputes around them.

Which days are public holidays

The Public Holidays Act lists twelve public holidays:

• New Year's Day, 1 January
• Human Rights Day, 21 March
• Good Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday
• Family Day, the Monday after Easter Sunday
• Freedom Day, 27 April
• Workers' Day, 1 May
• Youth Day, 16 June
• National Women's Day, 9 August
• Heritage Day, 24 September
• Day of Reconciliation, 16 December
• Christmas Day, 25 December
• Day of Goodwill, 26 December

Under section 2(1) of that Act, whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is also a public holiday. National Women's Day fell on Sunday 9 August 2026, so Monday 10 August 2026 was a public holiday. Human Rights Day falls on Sunday 21 March 2027, making Monday 22 March 2027 a public holiday, and the Day of Goodwill falls on Sunday 26 December 2027, making Monday 27 December 2027 one too. The Sunday itself remains a public holiday, which matters to people who work Sundays.

There is no equivalent rule for Saturdays. A public holiday on a Saturday is simply lost to anyone who does not work Saturdays. The President can also declare additional public holidays by proclamation, as usually happens for national election days, and those count like any other.

A paid day off, if it is your working day

Section 18(2)(a) says that if a public holiday falls on a day on which you would ordinarily work, and you do not work, your employer must pay you at least the wage you would ordinarily have received for that day. It must be paid on your usual pay day (section 18(4)).

The key words are "would ordinarily work". If you work Monday to Friday, a public holiday on a Wednesday is a paid day off. If it falls on your Saturday off, you get nothing extra. For shift workers, the question is what your roster would have had you doing that day. An employer cannot avoid paying for the holiday by rearranging the roster at the last minute so that the holiday becomes your "off day"; a roster changed only to dodge the holiday is a dispute worth raising.

If a public holiday falls during your annual leave, on a day you would ordinarily have worked, section 20(8) entitles you to an extra day of paid leave. The holiday may not be counted as a day of annual leave, a point explained further in our guide to how much annual leave you get.

You can only be made to work by agreement

Section 18(1) says an employer may not require an employee to work on a public holiday except in accordance with an agreement. That agreement can be in your employment contract, a collective agreement or a separate arrangement, and many contracts in retail, hospitality, healthcare and security include one. If there is no agreement at all, you are entitled to decline.

There is a narrow exception in section 6(2): section 18(1) does not apply to work that must be done without delay because of circumstances the employer could not reasonably have foreseen, and which cannot be done by employees during their ordinary hours. A burst pipe flooding the warehouse may qualify; a predictable holiday trading rush does not.

The Public Holidays Act also allows a public holiday to be exchanged for another day, fixed by agreement between you and your employer. A business that trades on Heritage Day can therefore agree with staff to take another day off instead. The key word, again, is agreement.

Being disciplined or dismissed for refusing to work a public holiday that you never agreed to work is likely to be unfair. If you are dismissed, you have 30 days to refer the dispute, as our guide on referring an unfair dismissal to the CCMA explains.

What you are paid if you do work

Section 18 sets three rules:

• Holiday on your ordinary working day, and you work it: at least double your ordinary daily wage or, if it is greater, your ordinary daily wage plus the amount earned for the time worked (section 18(2)(b)). The second figure wins when you work longer than your ordinary day.
• Holiday on a day you would not ordinarily work, and you work it: your ordinary daily wage plus the amount earned for the work done that day (section 18(3)).
• A shift that straddles the holiday and another day: the whole shift counts as worked on the holiday, unless the greater part of it fell on the other day (section 18(5)).

These are minimums. Your contract may pay more. If a bargaining council agreement or a sectoral determination covers your sector, read it as well: these can set their own arrangements for holiday work within the limits the Act allows, and where one applies it usually governs the detail. Your union, or the bargaining council itself, can tell you whether one covers your workplace.

Who is covered, and who is not

The public holiday rules are in chapter two of the BCEA, which does not apply to senior managers, to sales staff who travel to customers and regulate their own hours, or to employees who work less than 24 hours a month for the employer (section 6(1)).

Employees who earn above the BCEA earnings threshold, R269 600.90 a year from 1 May 2026, are excluded from several working-time sections by ministerial determination. Section 18(3) is among them, so a higher earner who works a holiday that falls on a non-working day has only what the contract provides. But sections 18(1) and 18(2) still apply: a higher earner cannot be made to work a public holiday without agreement and still gets the paid day off, and the double-pay rule, when the holiday falls on a working day.

Part-time and casual workers who work 24 hours or more a month are covered. A part-timer who works Mondays and Thursdays is entitled to a paid day off when a public holiday lands on a Monday.

Common disputes

The disputes that come up most often are these:

• The holiday is deducted from annual leave. Unlawful, if it fell on a day you would ordinarily have worked. You are owed the extra day.
• Time off instead of holiday pay. Lawful only by agreement, through an exchange of the holiday for another day.
• No pay for a holiday during a quiet week or shutdown. If the holiday fell on a day you would ordinarily have worked, it is paid, even if the business was closed anyway.
• A flat hourly premium. Payroll systems often pay worked holiday hours at double time but miss the rule that you are owed at least a full double day, or your day plus the hours worked if that is more.
• Casual and part-time staff left out. If you work 24 hours or more a month and the holiday fell on a day you would ordinarily have worked, you are owed the paid day like anyone else. Being called "casual" does not change that.
• The normal rate because "everyone works the holiday here". Agreeing to work public holidays is not agreeing to give up the premium. The section 18 minimums still apply.
• Rostered to work without agreement. You may decline, unless your contract or a collective agreement says otherwise or the emergency exception genuinely applies.

Worked example

This example is illustrative. Bongani works at a hardware store on a rotating roster of eight-hour shifts, five days a week, earning R40 an hour, so his ordinary daily wage is R320. His contract says nothing about public holidays.

Youth Day falls on his rostered day off. He is not owed anything for it, because he would not ordinarily have worked that day. Day of Reconciliation falls on a day he was rostered to work, but the store closes. He must be paid R320 for the day, and the store may not record it as annual leave.

In December, his manager puts him on the Christmas Day roster without asking. Because Bongani has never agreed to work public holidays, he may decline. He agrees to work if he is paid correctly. Christmas Day is one of his rostered days, so he is owed at least double his daily wage, R640, for an eight-hour shift.

Change the facts: Bongani's contract includes a clause by which he agrees to work public holidays as rostered. He can then be required to work Christmas Day, but the pay rule does not change: he is still owed at least R640.

What to do

1. Check your contract and any collective agreement for a clause about working public holidays.
2. Keep your rosters and payslips. Disputes turn on whether the holiday fell on a day you would ordinarily have worked.
3. If you do not want to work a holiday and have not agreed to, say so in writing in advance.
4. If holiday pay is missing or short, write to your employer with your calculation, using the calculator.
5. If it is not corrected, use the routes in our guide on what to do when your employer does not pay you: a labour inspector can issue a compliance order, and employees below the earnings threshold can refer the claim to the CCMA.