Country & year guides
These guides are built from the same HolidayDB calendar data as the calculators. Pick a guide, then choose a country and year.
Each guide is a pre-built country/year reference generated from HolidayDB public holiday data and business-day logic. You can use it to quickly check working days, public holidays, working hour estimates, and long weekend opportunities without configuring calculator inputs.
This is useful when you’re planning payroll cycles, HR staffing, operations and delivery timelines, logistics, or travel/vacation windows across multiple countries and years.
The guides use country-specific public holiday datasets, business-day calculations, and configurable workweek assumptions (for example Sunday–Thursday schedules in some regions).
| Guide | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Working days by country & year | Month-by-month business days for a year, excluding weekends and national public holidays in the calculation. |
| Working hours by country & year | Estimated working hours for a year, excluding weekends and national public holidays (8-hour workday). |
| Public holidays by country & year | National public holiday lists by year for each supported country. |
| Long weekends & bridge days by country & year | Bridge-day opportunities ranked by efficiency: take minimal time off around weekends and public holidays. |
Working days, holidays, and planning guides
These guides help you quickly reference calendar and planning data that’s tedious to calculate by hand across countries and years — especially when public holidays and workweeks differ.
In practice, teams use the guides to check things like:
- business days per month or year
- estimated working hours
- public holiday calendars
- bridge-day opportunities and long weekends
The pages are built from public holiday datasets, business-day calculations, and working schedule assumptions, and they’re commonly used for payroll, project planning, HR, staffing, logistics, operations, and travel planning.
Why country and year guides matter
Calendar rules differ across countries. Public holidays vary, and working weeks are not globally consistent.
A “20 workdays this month” assumption can break quickly when you cross borders, handle regional holidays, or work with different workweek structures — and those assumptions affect payroll, delivery timelines, and staffing plans.
For example:
- public holidays vary significantly between countries
- some Gulf countries may use Sunday–Thursday schedules
- regional holidays can change working-day counts and payroll/delivery timing
Country/year guides make it easier to plan for payroll, HR, delivery timelines, staffing, and international operations without re-deriving these rules each time.
Built for both browser use and APIs
The guides are generated from the same HolidayDB APIs and logic used by the calculators. Use the browser pages for quick reference, and use the APIs when you want automation inside payroll, HR, logistics, and SaaS systems.
Start with the API documentation, or explore the calculators if you want to model a specific scenario interactively.
Guide categories
Payroll and HR guides
Holiday and planning guides
All guides use the same underlying holiday and business-day logic for consistency across countries, years, and tools.
Common use cases
- payroll planning
- PTO forecasting
- staffing and workforce planning
- contractor estimation
- delivery and SLA planning
- international operations
- vacation planning
- comparing countries and regions
Frequently asked questions
What are country & year guides?
They are pre-built pages that let you browse working days, working hours estimates, public holidays, and long-weekend/bridge-day opportunities by country and year.
Do the guides include public holidays?
Yes. The guides use HolidayDB public holiday data for each supported country/year, and guide outputs (like working day counts) are derived from those holiday rules.
Are regional holidays supported?
The guide hubs focus on national calendars by default. For region/subdivision rules, use the calculators or the APIs where supported.
How are working days calculated?
Working days are calculated by excluding weekends and applicable public holidays for the selected country/year, using HolidayDB business-day logic and workweek assumptions.
Can I use the same logic via API?
Yes. The same logic is available via HolidayDB endpoints documented in the API docs.
Which guides are useful for payroll?
Start with working days and working hours. They’re commonly used for payroll calendars, staffing, and capacity planning.
Are long weekend opportunities included?
Yes. Use long weekends & bridge days to browse opportunities by country and year.
Related: calculators, API docs.