Ontario public holidays 2026: the nine ESA days (and three that calendars often add)

A wall calendar for Ontario often shows a dozen red dates. The Employment Standards Act only requires nine paid public holidays, so three popular days off are a courtesy, not a legal given. Here is the 2026 list, what that means for working days, and what changes in 2027 when Christmas falls on a Saturday.

Ontario ESA public holidays in 2026

These nine dates are the public holidays named in Ontario's Employment Standards Act for most provincially regulated workplaces. Your contract or collective agreement can be more generous; it cannot be less. This page is a plain-words explainer, not legal advice — check the Act or the Ministry of Labour if a particular day affects pay.

Three days many calendars add

Schools, municipalities and many private employers still close or offer a day off on one or more of these. That is a workplace choice. If you treat all twelve dates as holidays when counting business days, you get 249 working days in 2026 instead of 252 — three extra weekdays removed.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (also called Orange Shirt Day) is 30 September every year. It is a paid holiday for federally regulated employers and, among others, for provincially regulated workplaces in British Columbia, Manitoba (as Orange Shirt Day), Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It is not an Ontario ESA public holiday.

Why Boxing Day moves to Monday 28 December

When a fixed Ontario public holiday falls on a Saturday, the substitute weekday is normally the Friday before; when it falls on a Sunday, it is the Monday after. If that substitute is already a holiday, the day walks forward to the next free weekday. In 2026 Boxing Day is Saturday 26 December, so the Friday before is Christmas Day itself. The substitute therefore becomes Monday 28 December. Christmas Day stays on Friday 25 December.

That is different from the UK (always the next weekday) and from Australia (the weekend date often stays a holiday and an extra weekday is added). See UK substitute days and Australian additional days if you are comparing rules.

Preview: Ontario ESA holidays in 2027

Christmas 2027 is a Saturday, so the weekday off is the Friday before. Boxing Day is the Sunday, so its substitute is the Monday.

The three commonly added days in 2027 would be Civic Holiday (Mon 2 Aug), the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (Thu 30 Sep) and Remembrance Day (Thu 11 Nov).

Working days and a calendar you can subscribe to

2026 has 261 weekdays. The nine ESA holidays above all land on a weekday, which leaves 252 working days for a typical provincially regulated Ontario workplace. Switch the calculator to “Federal + extras” and the same year shows 249.

# Ontario ESA holidays in 2026
curl -s 'https://api.oddlathe.com/v1/holidays?region=ca-on&year=2026&set=statutory'

# working days between two dates (both ends included)
curl -s 'https://api.oddlathe.com/v1/workdays?region=ca-on&from=2026-01-01&to=2026-12-31&set=statutory'

# subscribe-once calendar feed
https://api.oddlathe.com/v1/holidays.ics?region=ca-on&set=statutory

Federally regulated employers should use region=ca instead (ten holidays, including Remembrance Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and no Family Day).

Related

Is Civic Holiday statutory in Ontario? · Family Day dates by province · Working days until a deadline · UK substitute days · Bank holidays calculator · Anvil holidays API

Questions

Published 8 November 2026.