Is the Spring Bank Holiday the same as Whit Monday?

No. Whit Monday is the day after Whit Sunday and moves with Easter, and the Board of Trade's own table set it at 22 May in 1972 against a Spring Bank Holiday of 29 May.

Why does it fall on the last Monday in May?

The Government wanted a fixed spring holiday to stretch out the holiday season, and Edward Heath proposed that weekday to the Commons on 4 March 1964. The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 later made it permanent for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland.

Has the date of the Spring Bank Holiday ever been changed?

Yes. Four changes were traced through The Gazette's own index, in 1977, 2002, 2012 and 2022, and the 2002, 2012 and 2022 proclamations give the Fiftieth, Sixtieth and Seventieth Anniversaries of the accession as the reason.

Spring Bank Holiday

Next celebratedMonday, May 31, 2027

The spring bank holiday used to move with Easter every year. It now falls on the last Monday in May in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, wherever Easter happens to fall.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATELast Monday in May

OBSERVED INUnited Kingdom

CATEGORYFederal

ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY

The Parliament of the United Kingdom

FIRST OBSERVED

1971

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The Monday moved out of Whitsun week.

The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 received royal assent on 16 December 1971 and wrote the last Monday in May into Schedule 1 for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland, in place of the moveable Monday in Whitsun week appointed by the Bank Holidays Act 1871. Royal proclamations under the older Act had already trialled the change in England and Wales in 1967 and again in 1970.

Read Schedule 1 of the Actvia The National Archives

INTRO

The 1928 Act that would have pinned Easter down

Before Parliament pinned the Spring Bank Holiday to a fixed weekday, it had legislated to pin down Easter itself. That Act is still on the statute book and has never taken effect.

The Easter Act 1928 says Easter Day shall be the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Its commencement was left to an Order in Council. legislation.gov.uk records that the power of appointment conferred by section 2(2) has not been exercised.

The Government kept the two questions together. A Commons written answer of 26 October 1967 said that if Easter could be fixed, it would be for consideration whether the spring bank holiday should fall at Whitsuntide.

ORIGINS

Spring Bank Holiday history

INTRODUCTION

Before 1871 there was almost nothing to move. Lord Drumalbyn, opening the 1971 Bill in the Lords, said English Common Law recognised only two days a year besides Sundays when the banks did not do business: Good Friday and Christmas Day.

The Bank Holidays Act 1871 changed that. Its schedule for England and Ireland set Easter Monday, the Monday in Whitsun week, the first Monday in August and 26 December. The spring entry moved with Easter: it was the Monday after Whit Sunday, which Common Worship lists as Pentecost.

CHAPTER 01

A White Paper about congestion, not the church

The push came from traffic. A White Paper on Staggered Holidays, Command Paper No. 2105, was laid before Parliament in July 1963. The Government's stated aim was the extension of the holiday season and the avoidance of congestion at peak holiday times.

Edward Heath, then President of the Board of Trade, put the plan to the Commons on 4 March 1964. He wanted a fixed spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May in place of Whit Monday. Hansard's index carries no earlier parliamentary use of the words spring bank holiday, against 128 contributions for Whit Monday across the record from 1803 up to that day.

CHAPTER 02

The experiment that skipped years

The change arrived by proclamation, not by statute. One given at Buckingham Palace on 28 July 1966 ordered that in England and Wales in the year 1967 the Monday in Whitsun week shall not be a Bank Holiday, and instead the last Monday in May shall be a Bank Holiday. It was made with the advice of the Privy Council, under section 5 of the 1871 Act.

It did not then run every year. The proclamations for 1968 and 1969 altered Scotland's May holiday and the August holiday but left the Monday in Whitsun week standing in England and Wales. Drumalbyn later described the run as continuing the experiment with slight variations.

CHAPTER 03

A Monday written into the schedule

The Bill reached its Lords Second Reading on 9 December 1971. Drumalbyn told peers the change had proved generally acceptable in England and Wales, and that it was time to fix the dates permanently.

Royal assent came on 16 December 1971. Schedule 1 of the new Act carries the last Monday in May, and Parliament had traded a rule about Easter for a rule about Mondays.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Whitsun week enters the statute

The Bank Holidays Act received royal assent on 25 May and gave England and Ireland the Monday in Whitsun week.

A White Paper on staggered holidays

The Government laid Command Paper No. 2105, Staggered Holidays, before Parliament in July.

Heath proposes a fixed spring holiday

On 4 March the President of the Board of Trade told the Commons the Government wanted a fixed spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May.

A proclamation displaces Whit Monday

A royal proclamation of 28 July ordered that in 1967 the Monday in Whitsun week should not be a Bank Holiday in England and Wales.

The Act fixes the last Monday

The Banking and Financial Dealings Act received royal assent on 16 December and wrote the last Monday in May into Schedule 1 for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland.

The first move under the new Act

A proclamation of 17 January moved the holiday from 30 May to 6 June in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and appointed 7 June as well.

next year, for the first time, we shall have not a religious Whitsun Bank Holiday but a secular spring festival

Richard CrossmanLord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Spring Bank Holiday Matters

MACHINERY

A date fixed by statute can still be lifted out of a single year.

Section 1(2) of the 1971 Act lets the Crown declare a scheduled bank holiday inexpedient and appoint another day in its place; section 1(3) is a separate power to appoint an extra day. The proclamation made for the Seventieth Anniversary of the accession recited both, moving England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 30 May 2022 to Thursday 2 June and adding Friday 3 June.

SCHOOLS

When school and works holidays fell apart

In the years when Whit Monday and the spring holiday diverged, industrial and school holidays landed in different weeks. Mr J. H. Osborn put repeated written questions to ministers in 1969 asking that school holidays be tied to the spring bank holiday rather than to Whitsun.

CUSTOM

The banking rule that became a day off

Nothing in the Bank Holidays Act 1871 made its days public holidays. Lord Drumalbyn told the Lords in 1971 that the days it prescribed gradually came to be fairly generally observed as public holidays in England and Wales, though not in Scotland.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 names the Spring Bank Holiday.

The truth

Schedule 1 is a bare list of dates. The England and Wales paragraph reads: Easter Monday. The last Monday in May. The last Monday in August. 26th December, if it be not a Sunday. 27th December in a year in which 25th or 26th December is a Sunday. The words Spring Bank Holiday appear nowhere in the statute.

The myth

The last Monday in May is a UK-wide statutory rule.

The truth

Schedule 1 gives that date to England and Wales, and to Northern Ireland. Scotland's paragraph in the same Schedule lists the first Monday in May instead, which is the date it has held in statute since 1871.

GOOD TO KNOW

Spring Bank Holiday Around the World

Scotland

GOV.UK's own tables give Scotland two May Mondays, an Early May bank holiday and a Spring bank holiday. The late-May one is appointed year by year by royal proclamation, as Monday 29 May 2023 was.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Here it is the early May Monday that is missing from the Act. A proclamation given on 21 July 2021 appointed Monday 2 May 2022 as a bank holiday in the three nations.

United States

Memorial Day falls on the same weekday, set as the last Monday in May by 5 U.S.C. 6103(a). Public Law 90-363 of 28 June 1968 moved it there from 30 May with effect from 1 January 1971. The two changes are contemporaneous, which is as far as these sources go.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Spring Bank Holiday

Read the schedule that sets the date

Schedule 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 fixes the date for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland. Open it at legislation.gov.uk and read the paragraph for your own nation.

LOOK

Look up the date in the Government's own table

The Government publishes a bank holiday table for each nation, year by year. Find the row labelled Spring bank holiday at GOV.UK.

COMPARE

Compare the Scottish list with the English one

The three national tables are published separately and they do not match in May. Put them side by side and note which Monday each one treats as the spring day.

FIND

Find a proclamation in The Gazette

Every move of this holiday was published as a royal proclamation. The 2022 one appeared in the London Gazette on 13 November 2020, and the notice carries the word inexpedient on its face.

CHECK

Check the church calendar the day replaced

Whit Sunday and Pentecost are one feast under two names, and Whit Monday is the day after it. The Church of England's Common Worship rules list that feast as Pentecost (Whit Sunday) among the Principal Feasts.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Spring Bank Holiday?

1 / 8

Which bank holiday did the last Monday in May replace in England and Wales?

Answer

It is a bank holiday, not an automatic entitlement. GOV.UK states that your employer does not have to give you paid leave on bank or public holidays, so what you get depends on your contract.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

23sources

23primary records

18independently dated

The National Archives2026-04-09

Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, Schedule 1

The statutory list of bank holidays for each of the three national lists.