Public holidays for 2027 are already fixed. Which means you can lock in your best long weekends now — before the good dates get taken by faster colleagues.
Last year’s guide opened with a story: 3 days off, a road trip from Barcelona to Begur, computer closed, zero tabs open. That one small, fully unplugged trip taught me the thing this whole guide is built on — rest isn’t about duration. It’s about disconnection. A few well-placed Brückentage give you more of that than most people get from twice as many random days off.
This year I did the same thing for the 2026 dates, and heard from several readers who booked their Easter trip in January and got exactly the dates they wanted. The people who plan early get first pick. The people who wait get whatever’s left.
Rest isn’t about how many vacation days you burn. It’s about how well you place them. This guide shows you exactly where.
Heads up: 2027 is weaker for Christmas than 2026 was — both Weihnachtsfeiertage fall on a weekend this time. Easter and Pentecost are where the real leverage is.
📌 When to Submit Your Requests
There’s no legal deadline for vacation requests in Germany — but there is a very real, unwritten one: whoever asks first, gets the dates. Popular bridge periods like Easter and Pentecost fill up fast, especially in smaller teams.
- Easter & Pentecost 2027: submit by January/February 2026 — yes, that’s next month if you’re reading this in late 2026
- Christmas/New Year: submit 3–6 months ahead (September/October 2027)
- Regional holidays (Epiphany, Corpus Christi, All Saints): 2–3 months ahead is usually enough
Pro tip: Many companies let you submit next year’s requests as early as Q4 of the current year. Check your internal policy or Betriebsvereinbarung before the good weeks disappear.
🎯 The 2027 Brückentage Strategy, Holiday by Holiday
🎉 Neujahr (New Year’s Day)
Public Holiday: Friday, January 1
Vacation Days Needed: 0
Total Days Off: 3 (Friday → Sunday)
✅ Free 3-day weekend, zero planning required. New Year’s Day lands on a Friday in 2027 — nothing to book, just show up on January 4 rested.
⭐ Heilige Drei Könige (Epiphany) — regional: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt
Public Holiday: Wednesday, January 6
Bridge Days: Monday 4 + Tuesday 5
Vacation Days Needed: 2
Total Days Off: 6 (January 1 → January 6)
Submit by: November 2026
✅ If you’re in BW, BY, or ST: New Year’s Friday holiday plus the weekend already gets you to Sunday. Add just 2 vacation days (Mon/Tue) and Epiphany on Wednesday closes the loop — 6 straight days off to start the year, for the price of 2.
🐣 Ostern (Easter) — the biggest deal of the year
Public Holidays: Karfreitag (Good Friday, March 26) + Ostermontag (Easter Monday, March 29)
Bridge Days: March 22–25 (Mon–Thu) + March 30 – April 2 (Tue–Fri)
Vacation Days Needed: 8
Total Days Off: 16 (March 20 → April 4)
Submit by: January/February 2027 — but honestly, the earlier the better for this one.
✅ This is the one that matters most. Karfreitag and Ostermontag bookend the same weekend, which means the week before and the week after both connect straight into it. Eight vacation days buy you more than two full weeks off.
How it breaks down:
- Weekend: March 20–21 (Sat–Sun)
- Vacation: March 22–25 (Mon–Thu) = 4 days
- Karfreitag: March 26 (public holiday)
- Weekend + Ostersonntag: March 27–28 (Sat–Sun)
- Ostermontag: March 29 (public holiday)
- Vacation: March 30 – April 2 (Tue–Fri) = 4 days
- Weekend: April 3–4 (Sat–Sun)
Total: 16 consecutive days off using 8 vacation days — March 20 through April 4.
🛠️ Tag der Arbeit (May Day)
Public Holiday: Saturday, May 1
Vacation Days Needed: —
⚠️ Falls on a weekend: No extra leverage this year — May Day lands on a Saturday. Nothing to plan around.
🚀 Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day) + 🌸 Pfingstmontag (Whit Monday) — the second-best deal
Public Holidays: Christi Himmelfahrt (Thursday, May 6) + Pfingstmontag (Monday, May 17)
Vacation Days Needed: 6
Total Days Off: 12 (May 6 → May 17)
Submit by: February/March 2027
These two holidays are always exactly 11 days apart — Whit Monday is fixed 50 days after Easter, Ascension 39 days after. In 2027, that gap lines up almost perfectly with a full working week, which makes this the second-best opportunity of the year.
Two ways to play it:
- Minimal (1 vacation day): Take Friday, May 7. Combined with Himmelfahrt (Thu) and the weekend, that’s a 4-day break (May 6–9).
- Maximal (6 vacation days): Take Friday May 7 and the full week of May 10–14. That bridges Himmelfahrt straight through to Pfingstmontag — 12 consecutive days off, May 6 to May 17.
✝️ Fronleichnam (Corpus Christi) — regional: BW, BY, HE, NRW, RP, SL + parts of SN/TH
Public Holiday: Thursday, May 27
Bridge Day: Friday, May 28
Vacation Days Needed: 1
Total Days Off: 4 (Thursday → Sunday)
Submit by: March 2027
✅ Easy win if you’re in one of the eligible states — one vacation day for a 4-day early-summer weekend.
🇩🇪 Tag der Deutschen Einheit & 🔥 Reformationstag
German Unity Day: Sunday, October 3
Reformation Day (regional: BB, HB, HH, MV, NI, SN, ST, SH, TH): Sunday, October 31
⚠️ Both fall on a Sunday this year. No bridge day opportunity for either — a rare double miss.
🕯️ Allerheiligen (All Saints’ Day) — regional: BW, BY, NRW, RP, SL
Public Holiday: Monday, November 1
Vacation Days Needed: 0
Total Days Off: 3 (Saturday → Monday)
✅ Built-in long weekend. All Saints’ falls on a Monday in the eligible states — a free 3-day weekend with nothing to book.
📿 Buß- und Bettag (Repentance Day) — Saxony only
Public Holiday: Wednesday, November 17
Bridge Days: Thursday 18 + Friday 19
Vacation Days Needed: 2
Total Days Off: 5 (Wednesday → Sunday)
Submit by: September 2027
✅ If you’re in Saxony: take both Thursday and Friday to connect the Wednesday holiday all the way to the weekend — 5 days off for 2 vacation days.
🎄 Weihnachten (Christmas) → Neujahr 2028
Public Holidays: 1. Weihnachtsfeiertag (Saturday, December 25) + 2. Weihnachtsfeiertag (Sunday, December 26)
Bridge Days: December 27–31 (Mon–Fri)
Vacation Days Needed: 5
Total Days Off: 9 (December 25 → January 2)
Submit by: September/October 2027
⚠️ Weaker than usual: both Christmas holidays and New Year’s Day 2028 fall on a weekend this year, so there’s no free weekday holiday to lean on. Taking the full week between Christmas and New Year (5 vacation days) still gets you 9 days off — just a smaller multiplier than 2026’s version of this guide, where the Christmas holidays landed midweek.
💡 Smart Planning Tips
- Submit early for Easter and Pentecost. These fill up fastest — 6 to 12 months’ notice isn’t overkill.
- Check your regional holidays. Epiphany, Corpus Christi, All Saints’, and Buß- und Bettag only apply in specific states — but if you’re eligible, they’re free long weekends most colleagues in other states won’t get.
- Coordinate with your team before submitting. Early communication beats a scheduling conflict discovered in March.
- Build in a backup date. Even good planning gets bumped sometimes.
- Put it in a calendar now. Google Calendar, Outlook, Notion — whatever you’ll actually look at. Visual planning is what turns “I should do this” into a submitted request.
Rest Is a Strategy, Not a Luxury
You don’t need to burn through every vacation day to get real time off. A handful of well-placed Brückentage buy you weeks — not days — of actual recovery.
But here’s what I keep seeing in coaching sessions: the people who struggle to truly switch off on vacation aren’t short on days. They’re carrying an unresolved career question into every holiday. The laptop stays closed. The mind doesn’t.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone — and it’s more solvable than it feels right now. And if you want to build the kind of resilience that lets you actually recover instead of just being offline, that’s exactly what we work on together.
So: block the calendar, submit the requests, and let your future self thank you in March.
Ready to Make 2027 Your Most Intentional Year Yet?
You’ve got the Brückentage mapped out. The harder question: what do you actually want to do with that time — and with the career underneath it?
30 minutes. Free. No strings attached. We’ll look at where you are, what’s getting in the way, and what your next meaningful step could be.
Niv Nicolas Nowbakht
Career & Business Coach, Berlin & Barcelona · 12 years of experience
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