When you set up your company’s basic information or an office, 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. To manage bank holiday calendars, you must be a Personio Administrator.

Create a custom bank holiday calendar

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

Duplicate an existing bank holiday calendar

1. Go to Settings > Bank Holidays.
2. Select the calendar to duplicate from the list on the left.
3. Click the Duplicate calendar button on the top right.
4. The custom calendar appears in a dedicated section on the left. If you can’t see it, refresh the browser.
5. 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 > Bank Holidays.
2. Click Add new and name your custom calendar.
3. The custom calendar appears in a dedicated section on the left. If you can’t see it, refresh the browser.

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 balance for the last three months.
• Overall time off balances.

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

Add a holiday

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

Follow these steps if you want to add holidays that are not officially considered bank holidays, like December 24 or 31.

1. Go to Settings > Bank Holidays.
2. Select a custom bank holiday calendar from the list on the left.
3. Click Add new holiday.
4. Select a bank holiday category, described below.
5. Fill in all the required fields.
6. Optional: if the holiday is specific to your company, select the Custom holiday type. The system still doesn’t deduct the holiday from your employees' time off balance.
7. Save the new bank holiday.

Bank holiday categories

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 > Bank Holidays.
2. Select a custom bank holiday calendar from the list on the left.
3. On the right side of the screen, click the holiday you want to edit or remove.
4. To remove the holiday, click Delete holiday and confirm.
5. To edit it, adjust the desired settings and confirm.

Assign the custom bank holiday calendar to your company or an office

Once you’ve created a custom bank holiday calendar, you can assign it to your whole company or to specific offices. 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 office, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Offices.
2. Select the relevant office and click Edit.
3. 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.
4. Confirm your choice.