What employees are involved?

All private-sector employees are concerned by the rules on working on legal holidays. However, a Grand-Ducal regulation lays down special rules for employees working in seasonal employment companies.

Which days qualify as legal holidays?

The term “legal holidays” refers to civil and religious holidays that are laid down by law.

The Labour Code lists the legal holidays and also lays down a number of rules to be applied to employees and apprentices on the occasion of a legal holiday.

The principle is that they are exempted by law from working on a legal holiday. Legal holidays therefore count towards the calculation of the working week and are paid as if the employee had worked.

Accordingly, for each legal holiday falling on a working day, an employee is entitled to remuneration corresponding to the number of working hours he would normally have worked on that day. The same applies to a public holiday that falls on a Sunday and is replaced by a day off.

However, some employees are denied holiday pay. These are employees who:

• through their own fault, did not work the day before or the day after the holiday in question;
• have been absent without justification for more than three days during the 25 working days preceding the public holiday, even if their reasons for absence are valid.

Eleven days are considered legal holidays in Luxembourg:

• New Year’s Day (1 January);
• Easter Monday;
• May Day;
• Europe Day (9 May);
• Ascension Day;
• Whit Monday;
• The Grand Duke’s birthday (23 June);
• Assumption Day (15 August);
• All Saints’ Day (1 November);
• Christmas (25 December);
• Boxing Day (26 December).

Apart from these legal public holidays, there are also a number of local or customary public holidays, such as Carnival Monday, 2 November and Fair Monday in Luxembourg City.

These days are not automatically free days for employees. In principle, they are required to report to their place of work. However, employers are free to grant these holidays to their staff in addition to the legal public holidays. Collective agreements may also grant them to employees.

What happens when a legal holiday occurs on a Sunday?

If a legal holiday falls on a Sunday, all employees get one day off as compensation.

This day off may be taken by employees when they choose, within a period of three months. This day must be taken as a day off, an employee may not take cash as compensation for the day.

ATTENTION: employees are responsible for requesting their day off with in three months; if they fail to do so within that period they lose the day off, unless the employer has instituted a more flexible approach for this issue.

What happens when a legal holiday occurs on a working day that has been declared a “working day not worked”?

The notion of “working day not worked” covers those days of the week (excluding Sunday) when people do not work according to the terms of their individual employment contract.

Example:

If an employee’s working hours are, for example, from Monday to Friday, then Saturday is the working day not worked.

If an employee has to work from Tuesday to Saturday, Monday is a working day not worked.

If a public holiday falls on such a non-working day, employees are entitled to an additional day off, which must be taken within three months.

The law further specifies that if service requirements are such that this is not possible, the day off can still be taken until the end of the calendar year, with the exception of compensatory leave due for public holidays in November and December, which must be taken within the first three months of the following year.

It is therefore always up to employees to apply to their employer for this compensatory leave.

Where compensatory leave cannot be granted due to service requirements, the employee is entitled to the corresponding remuneration.

What happens when a legal holiday occurs on a working day?

If a public holiday falls on a day of the week on which the employee would normally have worked more than 4 hours (in accordance with his or her individual employment contract), this day is free for him or her, without an additional day off being counted. Employees are paid for the day in the amount of the hours that normally are worked.

If a public holiday falls on a weekday on which employees would have worked only 4 hours or less (in accordance with their individual employment contract), they are entitled to half a day of compensatory leave, in addition to being paid for the number of hours they would normally have worked.

Where compensatory leave cannot be granted due to service requirements, employees are entitled to the corresponding remuneration.

If a public holiday falls during a period when the employee is off sick, can compensatory leave be awarded later?

A distinction must be drawn between two cases:

• If the holiday falls on a day on which the employee would normally have worked, the holiday is lost and the employee cannot get credit for it. If an employee would have had to work four hours or less on that day according to the employment contract, then the person is entitled to half a day’s compensatory rest.
• If the holiday falls on a weekday on which employees are not normally at work according to their employment contract, they are entitled to the holiday. They should therefore be given an extra day off.

The same answers apply to an employee on maternity leave.

It should be noted that to take these additional days of leave, a request must be submitted according to the rules set out above.

How is work on legal holidays paid?

Where employees are required to work on a public holiday, their remuneration is determined as follows:

• if they are paid by the hour, they are entitled to their normal hourly wage, increased by 100%, in addition to their usual wage for each hour worked on a public holiday;

Example:

Mr Y earns a gross hourly wage of €20 and generally works for six hours on Monday.

On Whit Monday his employer asked him to work for four hours.

His gross compensation for working on this legal holiday is as follows:
(6 x €20) + (4 x €40) = €280

• if they are paid monthly, they are entitled to a normal hourly wage, increased by 100%, in addition to their usual wage for each hour worked on a public holiday. The normal hourly wage is determined by dividing the monthly wage by 173.

Example:

Mr X works forty hours each week, eight hours daily from Monday to Friday. He earns a gross salary of €2,900.

On Monday, 1 November, which is a legal holiday, All Saints’ Day, he had to work six hours. This month his salary is calculated as follows:

Hourly wage: €2,900 : 173 = €16.76

Salary to be paid at the end of the month: €2,900 + (6 x €33.52) = €3,101.12

Note that supplementary wages for hours worked on a public holiday are exempt from tax without any limitation.

How is work on a public holiday that is also a Sunday paid?

Where employees work on a public holiday that is also a Sunday, they are entitled to a combination of the legal public holiday pay and the Sunday bonus:

• to compensate for the public holiday that falls on a Sunday: a day of compensatory leave to be taken individually within three months from the date of the holiday in question;
• to compensate for work on a legal holiday:
  remuneration for the hours actually worked on that day at the normal hourly rate
  + public holiday surcharge
  = 100% of the normal hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours actually worked on that day;
•  to compensate for work on Sunday: 70% wage increase (70% of the normal hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours worked on Sunday).

If the hours worked on Sunday are also overtime for the employee, he/she is also entitled to compensatory rest at the rate of one and a half hours for each hour of overtime worked or to a 40% increase in salary.

How is work on legal holidays paid in companies working on a seasonal basis?

There are specific rules that favour employees engaged in seasonal work.

Seasonal companies include those in the hotel, dining and beverages sectors, as well as all other companies in the private sector whose business is subject to seasonal fluctuations.

When employees working in these businesses work on legal holidays, they are compensated for each legal holiday worked as follows:

• they may receive 2 paid days off within 6 months;
• they may receive 2 paid days in addition to the leave;
• they may receive one paid half-day for all legal holidays worked over the entire year, which days are not counted when determining weekly rest periods.

What about young workers who work on a legal holiday?

In principle, young workers may not work either on legal holidays.

However, in force majeure events or where the existence or the security of a company requires their labour, an employer can cause young people to work on a legal holiday, but only to the extent necessary to avoid exposing a company to a serious impediment to its normal operations, and if they are legitimately unable to secure adult workers to assist them.

Employee directors must immediately inform the Labour Inspectorate of such labour, indicating the reason(s) for this holiday work.

In addition, the Labour Minister can extend authorisation for holiday work by young people employed in hotels, restaurants, cafés, eating establishments, clinics, health and care facilities for the elderly and/or dependent persons, children reception centres and institutions working in the education and childcare sectors. The Minister’s decision shall specify the period such authorisation shall be valid.

Young workers employed on legal holidays receive supplementary compensation of 100% in addition to the standard pay for working on legal holidays that all employees receive.

Furthermore, a full rest day shall be awarded for legal holiday work within the 12 days immediately following the legal holiday in question.

Are employers required to keep a separate register for holiday work?

Yes, employers must keep a special register for work on legal holidays that indicates the amounts paid to their employees.