Public holiday transfer rules

This year Christmas Day and New Year's Day fall on a Sunday and are therefore subject to specific Christmas and New Year public holiday transfer rules.

If the public holiday falls on a Sunday and the day would otherwise be a working day for the employee, the public holiday must be treated as falling on that day.

If the public holiday falls on a Sunday and the day would not otherwise be a working day for the employee, the public holiday must be treated as falling on the following Tuesday.

Employers should consider the impact of the transfer rules and discuss your business requirements with employees well in advance.

Where the public holiday is observed on Sunday the following Tuesday will just be an ordinary day for the employee. If they usually work on Tuesday and you do not require them to work, then annual leave or roster changes may be necessary.

If Sunday IS normally a working day for the employee the public holidays will be:

Christmas Day   = Sunday 25 December 2016 | New Year's Day = Sunday 1 January 2017

If Sunday IS NOT normally a working day for the employee, you will use the Public holiday transfer:

Christmas day = Tuesday 27 December 2016 | New Year's Day = Tuesday 3 January 2017

* An employee will only be entitled to a paid day off on the public holiday if the day would otherwise be a working day for them.

Closedown period

If a public holiday falls during a closedown period, the factors to what would otherwise be a working day must be considered as if the closedown were not in effect.  This means employees may be entitled to paid public holidays during closedown periods.

A public holiday that occurs during an employee's annual holidays is treated as a public holiday and not an annual holiday.

Annual holidays and public holidays

An employee who has an entitlement to annual holidays at the time that their employment ends will be entitled to be paid for a public holiday if the holiday would have otherwise been a working day; and occurred during the employee's annual holidays had they taken their remaining holiday entitlement immediately after the date on which their employment came to an end

Transfer of a public holiday

An employer and an employee can agree in writing to transfer a public holiday to any 24-hour period.

This means with agreement a public holiday may be transferred by a few hours to match shift arrangements or to a completely different day.

In the absence of a written agreement, a public holiday is observed midnight to midnight.