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All officialholidays in Finland are established by acts ofParliament. The official holidays can be divided intoChristian and non-Christian holidays.^[1] The main Christian holidays areChristmas,New Year's Day,Epiphany,Easter,Ascension day,Pentecost,Midsummer Day, andAll Saints' Day. The non-Christian holidays areMay Day and theIndependence Day of Finland.

In addition to this all Sundays are official holidays but they are not as important as the special holidays. The names of the Sundays follow theliturgical calendar and they can be categorized as Christian holidays. When, in the late 1960s, the standard working week in Finland was reduced to 40 hours by an act of Parliament, it also meant that all Saturdays became a sort ofde facto public holidays, though notofficial ones. Easter Sunday and Pentecost are Sundays that form part of amain holiday and they are preceded by a kind ofspecial Saturdays.

Several Christian holidays traditionally falling on working days or on fixed dates have been moved to Saturdays and Sundays. In 1955, Midsummer day was moved to the Saturday following 19 June, the feast of theAnnunciation to the Sunday following 21 March (or, if this coincides with Easter or withPalm Sunday, the Sunday before Palm Sunday), andAll Saints' Day to the Saturday following 30 October. More holidays were moved in 1973:Epiphany to the Saturday following 5 January andAscension Day to the Saturday before the traditional Thursday, but these revisions were reversed in 1991.

In Åland,Åland's Autonomy Day is celebrated on 9 June each year to commemorate the establishment of the region’s autonomy. It is a paid holiday only for public sector employees.^[2][3]

Christmas Eve and Midsummer Eve might very well be the single most important holidays during the entire year for Finns. Surprisingly they are not officially called holidays and are not so marked in calendars, but for most people, are not working days, and in practice they differ from official holidays only in that mostshops are open on those days from early morning till noon. They hold thisde facto status partly due to some statements in legislation but also because most employment contracts provides for these days as full holidays. A number of the less important main holidays are also preceded byde facto half days, meaning that in some (but not all) offices working hours are then shorter than normally. These areMaundy Thursday, the day before May Day andNew Year's Eve.

Already before the 5 days working week was generally adopted in Finland in the late 1960s, working hours in most cases were shorter on Saturdays (4...5 h) than on other weekdays (8 h), but they were equally shorter also on all eves of public holidays, for example on the eve of Epiphany, the eve of All Saints' Day, and even including Christmas Eve and Midsummer Eve. But when Saturdays ceased to be working days, new contracts removed these shortenings from other holiday eves, except from Midsummer and Christmas Eve which also becamede facto holidays.

The Finnish calendar also provides for specialflag flying days. A day's status as a flag flying day has no formal link with an eventual status as an official or as ade facto holiday. However, May Day, Midsummer Day and Independence Day have the status of both a flag flying day and a public holiday. Midsummer Day is also Flag Day.

Finland has an officialNational Day, 6 December. Some minorobservances are also denoted in the Finnish calendar, though they have not been judged worthy of either holiday or flag flying day status.

• Flag flying days in Finland
• Namesdays in Finland
• Tourism in Finland

• Public holidays in Finland
• Lists of public holidays by country
• Culture of Finland
• Society of Finland
• Lists of organised events in Finland

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