September’s bank holidays in Spain: the dates, the regions and who actually gets time off

Millions of Spanish workers already have their next long weekend marked on the calendar, but it isn’t a national one. Two regions are about to shut shops, schools and offices for three days running this September, while everyone else clocks in as normal.

Cataluña shuts down for the Diada on Friday September 11 

Cataluña’s biggest regional holiday, the Diada Nacional, falls on Friday September 11 this year, marking the anniversary of Barcelona’s fall in 1714 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Because the date lands on a Friday, anyone working a standard Monday-to-Friday week gets an unbroken three-day break running from September 11 to September 13. Shops, schools, town halls and most offices close across the region for the day, though bars, restaurants and tourist attractions in cities including Barcelona typically stay open to serve the extra footfall.

Fuerteventura’s patron saint hands the island a second puente 

Fuerteventura gets its own three-day weekend a week later. Friday September 18 is the feast of Nuestra Señora de la Peña (Our Lady of the Rock), the island’s patron saint, giving residents an unbroken run from Friday to Sunday September 20. 

Unlike the Diada, this holiday applies only to Fuerteventura rather than the whole of the Canary Islands. Anyone travelling between islands that weekend shouldn’t assume services and shops will be shut in Gran Canaria or Tenerife as well.

Why there is no puente nacional this month

To the frustration of everyone else in Spain who has to work on those two days, neither date amounts to a nationwide bank holiday. Spain’s national government fixes eight public holidays that apply everywhere, while each autonomous community chooses up to four more of its own, and individual towns can add two further local fiestas on top. September 11 and 18 are Cataluña’s and Fuerteventura’s own picks, not decisions made in Madrid for the whole country.

That regional patchwork also gives several other Spanish areas a day off this September without making national headlines. Asturias, Extremadura and Gran Canaria stop work on September 8, and Cantabria does the same on September 15 for La Bien Aparecida. El Hierro follows on Thursday September 24, when residents who also take the Friday off as a personal day can stretch it into a four-day break.

Check your own town before booking anything

Local fiestas vary so much from one municipality to the next that the safest way to know whether shops, banks or the town hall will be shut on a given date is to check the calendar published by the relevant town hall or comunidad autónoma (regional government), rather than assume a national pattern. That applies as much to British and other foreign residents as to Spanish nationals, particularly around banking, post office and public administration deadlines that do not move just because a neighbouring town or region has a local holiday.

The next nationwide break is five weeks away

For readers outside Cataluña and Fuerteventura hoping for their own long weekend, the wait continues until October 12, when the Fiesta Nacional de España falls on a Monday and hands the whole country a three-day break from October 10 to 12.

Until then, September’s only guaranteed extra days off belong to two regions, not the nation as a whole.