Skip to main content

Find the answers you need

Create and manage custom bank holiday calendars

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. To manage bank holiday calendars, you must be a Personio Administrator.

Before you start

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:

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

  Add a new holiday Remove an existing holiday

The employee worked

(Only relevant if your company tracks overtime)

 The time tracked becomes overtime. The system no longer considers the time tracked as overtime.
The employee had approved time off The system adds the day back to the employee’s time off balance. The system subtracts the day from the employee’s time off balance.

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.
  2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Bank holidays.
  3. Select the calendar to duplicate 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

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.
  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 bank holiday category, described below.
  6. Fill in all the required fields.
  7. 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.
  8. Save the new bank holiday.

Bank holiday categories

Category Description
Fixed date A holiday that repeat every year on the same date.
Once on a fixed date A one-off holiday for the selected year.
Weekday in month For example: the third Monday of April of every year.
Easter offset A holiday that occur a specific number of days before or after Easter Sunday.

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: Duplicate the updated system calendar

  1. Duplicate 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.

 

Help us improve. Is this page helpful?