Working days in 2026: the complete calculation

Planning a payroll budget, a daily rate (TJM — taux journalier moyen) or a resourcing schedule for 2026? The number of working days in France in 2026 is a basic data point, yet it generates persistent confusion: calendar days, jours ouvrables, jours ouvrés, bank holidays, paid leave, RTT, the solidarity day. Using the wrong figure distorts your payroll cost forecasts and undermines your simulations.

2026 has a particularly favourable calendar: nine of the eleven public holidays fall on weekdays, and only two land on the weekend. This ratio benefits both employers and self-employed professionals managing their billable capacity. The gross starting point is 252 theoretical working days (jours ouvrés) — but that headline figure alone cannot drive a budget or a forfait jours agreement.

In mainland France, 2026 contains 252 theoretical working days (Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays). A standard employee with five weeks of paid leave and ten RTT days has around 216 days of actual presence. A manager on a 218-day forfait jours package has 9 additional rest days to schedule over the year.

Article L3133-1 of the French Labour Code (Code du travail) lists eleven legal bank holidays. In 2026, their distribution is favourable: nine fall on a working day (Monday to Friday), two fall on the weekend.

The two holidays falling on the weekend (15 August and 1 November) do not reduce the working-day count and do not generally entitle employees to a day in lieu, unless a collective agreement (convention collective) provides otherwise.

Alsace-Moselle exception. The departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle benefit from two additional public holidays. In 2026, Good Friday falls on 3 April (a working Friday) and Saint Stephen's Day falls on 26 December (a Saturday). The theoretical working-day count in Alsace-Moselle is therefore 251 days — one fewer than in mainland France.

The confusion between these three notions is common, including in HR documents drafted by non-specialists. Each has a specific application.

The legal accrual of paid leave is based on jours ouvrables: an employee accrues 2.5 jours ouvrables per month of effective work, totalling 30 jours ouvrables for a full year. Many collective agreements have moved to a jours ouvrés basis (25 days for five weeks), which is lawful but must be formally stated.

For payroll budgets and capacity simulations, jours ouvrés are the correct basis. For statutory deadlines (notice, termination, contractual delivery), check whether the relevant text refers to calendar days or jours ouvrables.

The basic calculation is straightforward arithmetic.

1. Days in the year: 365
2. Less weekends (52 weeks × 2): -104
3. Gross working days subtotal: 261
4. Less bank holidays falling on weekdays: -9
5. Theoretical working days 2026: 252

This figure of 252 is the reference base for everything that follows. It assumes a full-time employee working Monday to Friday, with all bank holidays treated as non-working. It is a theoretical ceiling, not an actual presence count.

To move from the theoretical figure to reality, deduct planned absences.

Standard employee (35 hours, no RTT)#

1. Base jours ouvrés 2026: 252
2. Legal paid leave (25 jours ouvrés): -25
3. Solidarity day: -1
4. Actual presence days: 226 days

If the collective agreement provides additional leave entitlements (for length of service, family events), this figure falls further.

Manager on a 218-day annual package (forfait jours)#

The individual forfait jours agreement sets a ceiling of 218 working days per year (articles L3121-44 and L3121-64 of the Labour Code). The calculation of additional rest days in 2026 is as follows:

365 - 104 (weekends) - 9 (bank holidays on weekdays) - 25 (paid leave) - 218 (package) = 9 rest days

In 2026, a manager on a 218-day forfait therefore has 9 additional rest days to schedule over the year, on top of five weeks of paid leave. This figure changes every year depending on the calendar.

Employee with 10 RTT days (35-hour agreement)#

1. Base jours ouvrés: 252
2. Paid leave: -25
3. RTT: -10
4. Solidarity day: -1
5. Actual presence days: 216 days

The question of billable days is often poorly framed by freelancers starting out. Starting from 252 days to calculate a daily rate leads to a systematic underestimation of actual costs and an overestimation of income.

From the 252 theoretical jours ouvrés, a realistic self-employed professional must deduct:

• Holidays and non-working days: 25 to 30 days
• Training days: 5 to 10 days
• Non-billable days (business development, administration, accounting, responding to tenders): 30 to 50 days depending on the activity
• Contingencies (illness, unplanned absence): 5 to 10 days

Typical result: 150 to 170 billable days per year. This figure — not 252 — should be your basis for calculating your daily rate.

In our work with consultants and liberal professionals, the gap between the stated daily rate and actual annual income almost always traces back to an overestimated billable-day count. A consultant who estimates 220 billable days and invoices only 150 in practice is working at an effective daily rate well below their headline figure. Correcting this assumption is usually the first useful step before any income simulation.

Only 1 May (Labour Day) is a bank holiday legally required to be both non-working and paid for all private-sector employees, under article L3133-4 of the Labour Code. For the other ten bank holidays, the general rule does not impose a day off: it is the collective agreement, company agreement or established custom that decides.

In practice, the overwhelming majority of French businesses treat all eleven bank holidays as non-working. But check your collective agreement before assuming that a bank holiday is automatically a day off in your sector — in particular in hospitality, food service, retail and transport.

The solidarity day (journée de solidarité) for elderly and disabled people remains compulsory in 2026. It represents one additional unpaid working day for employees (7 hours for a full-time employee) and a payroll levy of 0.3% of total gross wages for the employer.

The employer sets the date by company or sector agreement, or in the absence of an agreement by unilateral decision. Whit Monday (25 May 2026) remains the most common choice, but other dates are possible: an RTT day, a bank holiday other than 1 May, or any other arrangement provided by agreement.

For managers on a forfait jours package, the solidarity day is absorbed within the 218-day ceiling: it does not add a day beyond that limit, which simplifies payroll administration.

In 2026, two clusters of bank holidays invite careful planning in HR management.

May 2026 is particularly heavy, with four bank holidays within fewer than four weeks: Friday 1 May, Friday 8 May, Thursday 14 May (Ascension) and Monday 25 May (Whit Monday). The week of 11 to 15 May is a normal working week, but the surrounding weeks may concentrate absences if bridge days (ponts) are granted.

Monday 27 April and Friday 15 May are natural candidates for a bridge day linked to the Ascension period, depending on the company. Management and HR teams need to plan this period in advance to maintain operational continuity.

Key assumptions for the budget#

A credible payroll budget cannot start from 252 days. It must incorporate an actual presence assumption, which means setting precise parameters.

These figures do not account for unplanned absences (illness, childcare, training). For a prudent budget, an absence provision of 5 to 8 days per employee is reasonable depending on the sector.

For payroll outsourcing or outsourced HR management#

The number of working days is the basis for pro-rata calculations, holiday pay and absence indemnities. An error on this point in a payslip can generate salary catch-ups or overpayments. Understanding a French payslip requires mastering these fundamentals.

The 252-day figure is a useful starting point, but it says nothing about actual productivity, real workload or performance. In our practice, business owners who use this figure without adjustment tend to make two symmetrical errors: they overestimate their teams' capacity (by forgetting RTT, absences and training), and they underestimate the billable capacity of their self-employed workers (by forgetting that 30 to 40% of a freelancer's time is non-billable).

The useful question is not "how many working days are there in 2026?" but "how many days can my organisation actually deploy over the year, and at what unit cost?" It is that second calculation that feeds a budget, a daily rate or a hiring decision.

Updated 2026-05-26. This article is for information purposes only and does not replace tailored professional advice. For your specific situation, consult a chartered accountant (expert-comptable) registered with the Ordre des experts-comptables.