When you set up your company’s basic information or a workplace, you must select a bank holiday calendar that applies to your employees.

The holidays included in this calendar are days off for your employees and don’t impact their time off balances. If you want to add days off and subtract them from your employees’ balance, import those as time off instead.

While you can’t add or remove a holiday from these system calendars, you can create your own. 

Before you start

Permissions

• To create and manage bank holiday calendars, you need either an Administrator role or Edit permissions for the Organization > Holidays section. 
• To assign bank holiday calendars to specific workplaces, you need either an Administrator role or Edit permissions for the Organization > Workplaces section.
• To assign bank holiday calendars to the company, you need either an Administrator role or Edit permissions for the Organization > Company information section.

Effect on attendance and time off calculations

If you add, remove, or edit a holiday in a custom bank holiday calendar already in use, the system recalculates:

• Attendance and overtime balance from 1 November 2025 onward.
• Overall time off balances.

Use the table below to understand the possible outcomes for your employees:

Create a custom bank holiday calendar

To create a custom bank holiday calendar, you can copy an existing one or start from scratch.

Copy an existing bank holiday calendar

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Bank holidays.
3. Select the calendar to copy from the list on the left.
4. Click the Duplicate calendar button on the top right.
5. The custom calendar appears in a dedicated section on the left. If you can’t see it, refresh the browser.
6. To rename the new calendar, select it and click the Edit button on the right.

Create a custom bank holiday calendar from scratch

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Bank holidays.
3. Click Add new and name your custom calendar.
4. The custom calendar appears in a dedicated section on the left. If you can’t see it, refresh the browser.

Add a holiday

Follow these steps to add a holiday to a custom bank holiday calendar. This might be an official holiday that’s missing from the system calendar or a day specific to your company, like December 24 or 31.

If you add a new holiday to a custom bank holiday calendar already in use, consider the effect on attendance and time off calculations.

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Bank holidays.
3. Select a custom bank holiday calendar from the list on the left.
4. Click Add new holiday.
5. Select a Holiday category, described below.
6. Fill in all the required fields.
   • Enter a name and the date. 
   • Select whether to add the holiday as a half-day.
   • Under Source, select Public or statutory for official holidays, or Created by your organization for days specific to your company.
   • In Valid since, enter the first year the holiday applies. In Valid until, enter the last year, or leave it empty if the holiday is ongoing.
7. Add your holiday.

Bank holiday categories

Add a company closing day

You can add days when your whole company or workplace is closed, for example, December 24 and 31. These days don’t need to be official holidays. Employees don’t have to work on these days, and the system doesn’t deduct them from their time off balance. 

Follow the steps to add a holiday, as described earlier. Pay special attention to the following details:

• Category: Select Same date every year for a closing day that repeats annually, such as December 24. For a one-off day, select Once on a certain date.
• Name: Use a name your team will recognize, such as “Company closing day”.
• Half-day holiday: Select this if your company or workplace closes for half a day, for example, on December 24 or 31.
• Source: Select Created by your organization.
• Valid until: Leave it empty if the closing day repeats every year.

Assign the calendar to your company or the relevant workplaces if you haven’t already. Employees only get the day off once the company or their specific workplace uses this calendar.

Update or remove a holiday

Before you update or remove a holiday from a custom bank holiday calendar already in use, consider the effect on attendance and time off calculations.

To update or remove a holiday, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Bank holidays.
3. Select a custom bank holiday calendar from the list on the left.
4. On the right side of the screen, click the holiday you want to edit or remove.
5. To remove the holiday, click Delete holiday and confirm.
6. To edit it, adjust the desired settings and confirm.

Assign the custom bank holiday calendar to your company or a workplace

Once you’ve created a custom bank holiday calendar, you can assign it to your whole company or to specific workplaces. If your company and offices have different bank holiday calendars assigned, the system uses the calendar assigned to the office for employees based there.

If you switch to a new calendar, the system recalculates past attendance and time off records. To assign a bank holiday calendar to a specific workplace, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Organization section, click Workplaces.
3. Select the relevant workplace and click Edit.
4. In the relevant dropdown menu, select a bank holiday calendar. This list includes all the system bank holiday calendars and any custom bank holiday calendars.
5. Confirm your choice.

Make sure your custom bank holiday calendar remains up to date

To ensure the system bank holiday calendars in Personio remain accurate, we continuously update them. If you’re using a custom calendar, make sure it’s up to date and reflects current holiday information.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Bank holidays.
3. Compare your custom calendar with the relevant system calendar. (Scroll down to find all system calendars.)

If you need to update your custom bank holiday calendar, you have two options:

Option 1: Copy the updated system calendar

1. Copy the updated system calendar.
2. Add any additional days as needed. Make sure to add any holidays you may have added in past years. This helps ensure time off and overtime calculations don’t change.
3. Assign the calendars to your company or workplaces.

Option 2: Add holidays to your existing custom calendar

1. Click on your custom calendar.
2. Add any additional days listed in the system calendar to your custom calendar.

Tip:
If your country has recurring bank holidays, you can add holidays with a validity for future years. Otherwise, we recommend setting a reminder to check bank holiday calendars towards the end of each year.