There are 252 working days in France in 2026, counting Monday to Friday and excluding 9 public holidays that fall on a weekday. That is from 365 calendar days, with 104 weekend days removed.
Working days
252
Mon–Fri, holidays removed
Weekend days
104
Saturdays + Sundays
Weekday holidays
9
2 more fall on weekends
Avg / month
21.0
working days per month
| Month | Days | Weekends | Holidays | Working days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 31 | 9 | 1 | 21 |
| February | 28 | 8 | 0 | 20 |
| March | 31 | 9 | 0 | 22 |
| April | 30 | 8 | 1 | 21 |
| May | 31 | 10 | 4 | 17 |
| June | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 |
| July | 31 | 8 | 1 | 22 |
| August | 31 | 10 | 0 | 21 |
| September | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 |
| October | 31 | 9 | 0 | 22 |
| November | 30 | 9 | 1 | 20 |
| December | 31 | 8 | 1 | 22 |
| Total | 365 | 104 | 9 | 252 |
These are the 9 public holidays in France that land on a weekday in 2026 and therefore remove a working day. Holidays that fall on a weekend are not listed here because they do not change the working-day total.
The 252 working days shown above are the 365 calendar days of 2026, minus the 104 Saturdays and Sundays, minus the 9 public holidays that land on a weekday. Holidays that fall on a Saturday or Sunday are not subtracted, because they do not remove a day anyone would have worked; in 2026 that applies to 2 of France's public holidays. At a standard eight-hour day, 252 working days works out to roughly 2,016 working hours across the year, before any annual leave is taken.
French law uses two distinct terms. Jour ouvrable is any day except Sunday and public holidays, so Saturday counts; jour ouvré is the actual business day, typically Monday to Friday. Statutory leave under article L3141-3 is counted in jours ouvrables at 2.5 days per month worked, giving 30 days a year, which converts to 25 jours ouvrés. Notice periods in commercial contracts and the Code de procédure civile distinguish the two carefully. Bank settlement runs on TARGET2 for euro transactions and on the Banque de France domestic calendar for cheques and direct debits, which mirrors the eleven national jours fériés.
France recognises eleven jours fériés under article L3133-1 of the Code du travail. Only 1 May, the Fête du Travail, is mandatorily paid; the other ten are paid only if the collective agreement or employer policy says so, although in practice most employers do honour them. The list mixes civic dates (Bastille Day, 11 November Armistice, 8 May VE Day) with Catholic dates inherited from the 1905 separation of church and state (Easter Monday, Ascension, Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints, Christmas). Alsace and Moselle, governed under local Concordat law since 1801, additionally observe Good Friday and Saint Stephen's Day on 26 December.
This matters because the working-day total is not spread evenly. Some months in France carry several public holidays while others have none, so the month-by-month table above is the figure to use for payroll runs, billing cycles, SLA windows, and project plans rather than a flat assumption of about 21.0 working days per month. A month with two weekday holidays can have several fewer working days than a clear one, which changes capacity planning and the realistic delivery date for anything scheduled in business days.
To see the individual dates, the day of the week each holiday lands on, and the full official list, open the France holiday calendar for 2026. You can subscribe to those dates as an .ics feed so they appear in your own calendar, or use the working-days-between-two-dates calculator to count business days for a specific date range rather than the whole year.
Working-day figures are computed from the public holiday list for France (source: Nager.Date and the national references above) combined with a Monday-to-Friday business week. Regional holidays and substitute-day rules vary; confirm against the official calendar for legal or payroll use.