One thing is for sure: 2023 is sure to be a better year. At least when you consider the holidays. After the somewhat negative bridge days of recent years, things will definitely get better in 2023. Only a few public holidays fall on a weekend so please have a little more space when it comes to holiday planning.
Public holidays in Switzerland are celebrated very differently from canton to canton. We’ll show you some ways to combine your Fridays and public holidays and get a lot out of the so-called bridge days.
Here are the possible bridge days in 2023
14 days of Easter
The holidays around Easter will provide some relief. In 2023, the holidays of Good Friday and Easter Monday fall on April 7 and April 10, respectively. Since these national holidays are on Friday and Monday each year, you can take 4 days off per week before and after Easter. So you only enter 8 holidays but you are free from April 1 to April 16. So the holiday season can be doubled! You also have a half-day holiday in Zurich: on April 17, the people of Zurich celebrate their traditional spring festival: Sechseläuten or “Sächsilüüte” in the Zurich dialect.
Work day
Labor Day, a public holiday in AG (partially), BL, BS, FR, JU, NE, SH, SO, TI, TG, and ZH, falls on a Monday in 2023, so you can at least plan for a long weekend. .
Bridging the Ascension to Pentecost
Ascension takes place on Thursday, May 18, 2023. If you want to take a week off, you can also take the remaining 4 days of the week. So you can get a 9-day vacation period.
However, if you prefer a 9-day holiday week for Pentecost, you can use the 4-day Pentecost on Monday, May 29.
on Monday, August 1
The federal holiday on August 1 falls on a Tuesday next year. It is therefore ideal for extending the weekend or, if necessary, going on a summer vacation for the whole week.
All Saints’ Day on Monday
All Saints’ Day falls on Wednesday, November 1, 2023. In AG, AI, FR, GL, GR, JU, LU, NW, OW, SO, SZ, SG, TI, UR, VS and ZG, the day is considered a public holiday. For those who can still take the last 2 working days of the week, this means 5 days off in a row.
Christmas and New Year’s Eve
The outlook for year-end holidays looks really good in 2023. Finally, you can enjoy public holidays longer: Christmas falls on a Monday, and the Day After Christmas falls on a Tuesday. It’s the same game with the New Year: Holidays also fall on Mondays and Tuesdays. If you want to cover an extensive Christmas season next year, you can almost completely deduct additional public holidays from the holidays. Therefore, if you take an early holiday from the 27th to the 29th, you will have a good number of days off at the same time as the New Year.
Public holidays 2023
Holidays and public holidays in Switzerland often vary from canton to canton. Each canton handles this a little differently. However, these public holidays are valid in almost all Switzerland: