Due to a clause in the Public Holidays Act, South Africans will still enjoy the benefits of Freedom Day, which falls on Sunday, 27 April 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa has twelve public holidays, which start with New Year\u2019s Day on 1 January and end with Boxing Day on 26 December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the twelve public holidays do not mean South Africans will enjoy twelve additional paid holidays yearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When a public holiday falls on a Saturday, it will not move to a weekday. Simply put, people will not get a day off work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The good news is that the Public Holidays Act makes a special provision for public holidays which fall on a Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhenever any public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday,\u201d states the Public Holidays Act, 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freedom Day, celebrated on 27 April and falling on a Sunday in 2025, will still result in a day off work on Monday, 28 April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That means South Africans will have three working days off in April – Good Friday on 18 April, Family Day on 21 April, and Freedom Day on 28 April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bad news is that there is a public holiday that falls on a Saturday later in the year, which South Africans will miss out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
National Women\u2019s Day, celebrated on 9 August 2025, falls on a Saturday this year, meaning people will miss out on a day off work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Public Holidays Act does not make any special provision for a public holiday that falls on a Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is partly because Saturdays are not deemed non-business days in the Public Holidays Act of 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSunday or any public holiday shall be deemed to be a non-business day within the meaning of any law relating to bills of exchange or promissory notes,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks to public holidays, South Africans will enjoy eleven fully paid additional days off work in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Depending on their contract, employees who work on public holidays can be entitled to double their ordinary pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The table below shows the public holidays observed in South Africa in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freedom Day, typically celebrated on 27 April every year, falls on a Sunday. However, due to a specific Public Holidays Act clause, it will still be observed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":793213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[21689,21688,21687],"class_list":["post-811121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-freedom-day","tag-good-friday","tag-public-holidays-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811122,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811121\/revisions\/811122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Date<\/strong><\/td> Day<\/strong><\/td> Holiday<\/strong><\/td> Details<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead> 1 January<\/td> Wednesday<\/td> New Year\u2019s Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 21 March<\/td> Friday<\/td> Human Rights Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 18 April<\/td> Friday<\/td> Good Friday<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 21 April<\/td> Monday<\/td> Family Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 27 April<\/td> Sunday<\/td> Freedom Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 28 April<\/em><\/strong><\/td> Monday<\/em><\/strong><\/td> Public holiday Freedom Day observed<\/em><\/strong><\/td> Added<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> 1 May<\/td> Thursday<\/td> Workers\u2019 Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 16 June<\/td> Monday<\/td> Youth Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 9 August<\/td> Saturday<\/td> National Women\u2019s Day<\/td> No weekday off<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> 24 September<\/td> Wednesday<\/td> Heritage Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 16 December<\/td> Tuesday<\/td> Day of Reconciliation<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 25 December<\/td> Thursday<\/td> Christmas Day<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr> 26 December<\/td> Friday<\/td> Day of Goodwill<\/td> Normal<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"