Working-days calculator — region-aware, bridge days included

Why does a region-aware working-days calculator matter?

Most free online tools count working days against a generic Germany profile — twelve holidays per year, evenly distributed across states. That is rarely accurate. Bavaria observes 13 statutory holidays, Berlin 10, Hesse 9. An HR analyst, project lead or freelancer who builds a quarterly schedule against the generic figure will be two to three workdays off by the end of the year. Across longer ranges the discrepancy compounds into noticeable accounting errors.

This calculator separates every German federal state and every Swiss canton — Reformation Day in nine northern states only, All Saints’ Day in five Catholic states only, Epiphany in just Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Saxony-Anhalt. Four differentiation features layer on top, none of which any single competitor combines: a bridge-day detector with leverage ratio, a home-office allowance mode tied to §4 paragraph 5 number 6c EStG, a free weekday selector for 4-day weeks and part-time schedules, and an ICS export for every region.

How is the working-day count for a period computed?

The base formula is straightforward: walk every calendar day between the From and To dates (inclusive), classify each as workday, weekend day or public holiday, and tally. The practical complexity is in the corner cases: which work-week mode applies, which region, which holidays fall on weekends in 2026 and therefore lose their day-off status, how to subtract vacation and add weekend shifts on top.

The calculator iterates day by day and classifies each into one of three categories: working day, weekend day, public holiday. Working days are summed; weekend days surface as a separate stat; holidays are listed with date, name and weekday. From the working-day total, the manually entered vacation/sick/training days are subtracted and the manually entered weekend shifts are added. The result is the net working days — the number that belongs in a realistic staffing plan or a freelance invoice.

Which holidays are statutory in which German state?

Germany sets only three federal holidays uniformly: New Year, Labour Day, German Unity Day, plus the Easter and Christmas feasts. Everything else is state-level under each Land’s holiday legislation.

Reformation Day (31 October) — statutory in nine states: Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia. The northern, traditionally Protestant states. In Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, NRW, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Berlin: ordinary workday.

All Saints’ Day (1 November) — statutory in five states: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, NRW, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland. The traditionally Catholic states. Berlin and Hesse observe neither Reformation Day nor All Saints — Berlin 2026 sits well below the German average for statutory holidays.

Epiphany (6 January) — statutory in three states: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt. The only state-specific holiday in January.

Corpus Christi (60 days after Easter) — statutory in six states: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, NRW, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland. In Saxony and Thuringia it applies only in Catholic municipalities; sources for that municipal layer vary, so this calculator conservatively does not treat it as statewide in those two states.

Assumption of Mary (15 August) — statewide statutory only in Saarland. In Bavaria it applies only in municipalities with Catholic-majority population, so the calculator conservatively flags it in Bavaria and Saarland only.

Day of Repentance and Prayer (Wednesday before 23 November) — only in Saxony statewide. Was federal until 1994, then abolished to fund the long-term-care insurance; Saxony retained it as a compensating measure.

International Women’s Day (8 March) — only in Berlin (since 2019) and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (since 2023).

World Children’s Day (20 September) — only in Thuringia (since 2019).

What are bridge days and how many does 2026 offer?

A bridge day is a workday wedged between a public holiday and a weekend. Taking it as vacation produces more free days than you invest — the leverage starts at 2× and can reach 5× under optimal conditions where one workday bridges two holidays. Classic May bridge example: Labour Day (1 May) falls on a Friday in 2026. The preceding Thursday (30 April) as a vacation day extends the weekend to a four-day block — one vacation day buying four free days, a leverage of 4×.

2026 is not the strongest bridge-day year in Germany. Corpus Christi falls on Thursday 4 June 2026 — Friday 5 June would be the bridge day for a four-day weekend. But Corpus Christi is statutory only in the six Catholic-leaning states (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, NRW, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland) and across Austria. For Berlin, Hamburg or Bremen residents, the Thursday is just a workday and the bridge has zero leverage.

Ascension Day falls on Thursday 14 May 2026 — nationwide statutory across Germany. Friday 15 May as a vacation day produces a four-day weekend everywhere in Germany and Austria, leverage 4×. This is the most valuable bridge of the year and traditionally overbooked in HR planning queues.

The detector surfaces every candidate within the selected range and region, with the exact date, the surrounding holidays and the number of free days you gain. Plus the overall leverage ratio: if you take every suggested bridge, X vacation days produce Y free days.

How does the home-office allowance work from 2026 onward?

The home-office allowance lives in §4 paragraph 5 number 6c EStG and has been permanent since 2023. Current rule for 2026: for every calendar day on which the professional activity was carried out predominantly in the home and no primary workplace was attended, €6 are deductible as work expenses or operating expenses — capped at 210 days per year, so €1 260 maximum.

The 210-day cap is hard. Entering 220 home-office days still produces only 210 × €6 = €1 260; the extra ten days yield no additional allowance. They may still appear in the day calendar as proof if the tax office asks.

From 2026 onward many German tax offices ask for a detailed day-level calendar as proof. The older ‘rough estimate’ approach is more often rejected. The calculator fits exactly that workflow: enter the number of home-office days, the calculator shows the days counted (max 210), the euro amount and a Rust-Error warning if you exceed the cap.

What the calculator does NOT do: it does not replace a tax advisor. The allowance does not stack with the employee work-expense lump sum (€1 230) but offsets against it. For multiple roles it does not multiply. When combined with the commuter allowance, the days have to be separated. These detail questions belong in a tax-advisor session, not a browser tool.

What is the free weekday selector and who needs it?

Most working-day calculators ship with two modes only: 5-day week (Mon–Fri) or 6-day week (Mon–Sat). Reality is messier. According to the Hans Böckler Foundation, by 2026 some 70 % of the 2023 4-day-week pilot companies continued with the model, another 22 % in a hybrid arrangement. Around 30 % of the German labour market is part-time, often with non-contiguous weekday distributions — Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri is a common pattern for parents with mid-week childcare on Wednesdays.

In Custom mode you toggle individual weekdays by clicking. Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun activate or deactivate independently — non-contiguous combinations are fine. Examples:

• 3-day week Mon/Tue/Thu for freelancers with reduced workload.
• 4-day week Tue–Fri with Monday off (classic 4-day week).
• 5-day week Sun–Thu for medical staff with weekend on-call (Saturday off).
• 2-day week Mon/Wed for half-time contracts.

The calculation runs exactly like the standard configuration — the selected weekdays count as working days and the unselected ones as ‘weekend equivalent’. Holidays still get the region-specific treatment and reduce working days only when they fall on an active weekday.

What holidays apply in Austria and Switzerland?

Austria has 13 federal-level holidays (§7 paragraph 2 ARG). Unlike Germany, Good Friday is no longer a federal holiday in Austria after the 2019 European Court of Justice ruling — it remains a personal day-of-leave entitlement for members of Protestant churches only. The calculator does not count it as statutory in Austria. Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Assumption of Mary, All Saints’ Day and Immaculate Conception are federal, reflecting Austria’s predominantly Catholic alignment. The Austrian National Day on 26 October is the additional civic holiday.

Switzerland is markedly more heterogeneous — cantons regulate rest days autonomously under Article 110 of the Federal Constitution. Only the Swiss National Day on 1 August and New Year are uniformly federal. Everything else is cantonal: Berchtold’s Day (2 January) statutory in 12 cantons; St. Joseph’s Day (19 March) in 9 cantons; Ascension Day uniformly statutory; All Saints’ Day only in Catholic cantons. The Swiss Federal Day of Prayer in September always falls on a Sunday and therefore is a non-working day anyway.

This matters for cross-border commuters: someone living in Konstanz and working in Schaffhausen lives under two holiday profiles simultaneously. The calculator handles each region separately — switch the region to compare both views.

How does the iCal subscribe link reach the calendar?

The iCal export produces an iCalendar (RFC 5545) ICS file — an internationally standardised format for calendar data. The file contains one VEVENT per holiday with date (DTSTART/DTEND), name (SUMMARY) and a unique ID (UID) that prevents duplicate imports. Generation happens entirely client-side; nothing is uploaded, no tracking, no cookies.

Two options are exposed in the tool: a download button creates the ICS file locally and lets you import directly into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook or Thunderbird — a one-time operation. A subscribe URL is displayed alongside, pointing to a future static ICS endpoint per region that will support real subscriptions auto-updating as future-year holidays are added.

Practical example: in Outlook 365 you open ‘Open Calendar’ → ‘From Internet’ → paste the subscribe URL → you get a parallel calendar layer with every regional holiday alongside the personal calendar. Apple Calendar works analogously via ‘File → New Calendar Subscription’. Google Calendar requires the ‘Add by URL’ step in settings.

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