Holiday Pay in California – Do Employers Have to Give It?

Posted on April 1, 2024

An employee working on her laptop during the holidays. — Employers who provide holiday benefits usually either give you a paid day off or pay a premium rate.

California law does not require employers to provide you paid days off for holidays or to give you overtime/premium pay (“holiday pay”) for working on holidays. There are also no legal requirements that a business:

close on a holiday,
give you a day off for a holiday, or
allow you to accrue time off (paid or unpaid) if you choose to work on a holiday.

It does not matter whether you are exempt or non-exempt. However, relevant overtime pay and minimum wage laws are still in effect for non-exempt employees.

For example: Brian is scheduled to work 10 hours on Christmas for his employer in the state of California. While he is not legally entitled to more than his regular rate of pay for the first 8 hours, he is entitled to 1.5 times his normal rate for the last 2 hours because he is working overtime.

The only time employers have to provide holiday pay or paid time off is if one of these arrangements is promised in

the employment contract or
collective bargaining agreement.

If it is, then the employer is contractually obligated to provide it.¹

Note that many employers choose to provide holiday pay or paid time off since studies have shown that such benefits increase productivity.²

What about federal employees?

Many federal employees in the Executive branch who are working in California are legally entitled to holiday pay.³ If you are a covered worker, any hour worked on a holiday is paid at twice your regular rate of pay (double-time pay).⁴ This includes part-time employees.⁵

Not all Executive branch employees are entitled to holiday premium pay, such as elected officials and heads of departments.⁶

What holidays do employers recognize?

California employers often have a list of holidays that they recognize. These generally include state holidays:

New Year’s Day (January 1)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (third Monday in January)
Presidents’ Day (third Monday in February)
Cesar Chavez Day (March 31)
Memorial Day (final Monday in May)
Independence Day (July 4)
Labor Day (first Monday in September)
Veterans Day (November 11)
Thanksgiving Day (fourth Thursday and Friday in November)
Christmas Day (December 25)

Some employers may also cover other holidays, such as:

Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12)
Juneteenth (June 19)
Admission Day (September 9)
Indigenous People’s Day (fourth Friday in September)
Columbus Day (second Monday in October)
Christmas Eve (December 24)
New Year’s Eve (December 31)

Saturdays and Sundays are not considered holidays.⁷

Although California employers are not required to provide holiday pay benefits, many do.

What are the two ways employers can pay you for holidays?

Employers generally use one of two ways to provide holiday benefits for you. They can either:

give you a paid day off for the holiday, or
pay a premium rate for hours worked on the holiday.⁸

Additionally, not offering extra holiday pay can cause you to quit in order to spend the particular holiday with your friends and family, rather than on the job. Losing workers right before the holiday season is often a worst-case scenario for employers. Offering extra pay for holiday time rather than normal straight time can be the best way to keep this from happening.

Paid day off

Employers who provide a paid day off will usually give it on the holiday itself or, if the holiday falls

on a weekend,
on the preceding Friday or
the next Monday.

These employers are generally companies or businesses that can close on the holiday. By closing on the holiday, they can give all or at least most of the employees the workday off in the form of a paid holiday or vacation time.

Note that California state employees can generally use eight hours of their personal holiday credit or vacation leave to take off for the holidays

Lunar New Year,
Native American Day,
Genocide Remembrance Day, or
Juneteenth.

Premium rate

Employers can also pay a premium rate for hours worked on a holiday. Some employers pay time-and-a-half, or 1.5 times the normal rate of pay. This is also the standard overtime rate for working more than:

8 hours in a workday,
40 hours in a workweek, or
for the first 8 hours worked on the 7th consecutive day.

Other employers pay double time for holiday work, or twice the regular rate. This is also the standard overtime rate for working more than:

12 hours in a workday, or
8 hours on the 7th consecutive day in a workweek.

Still others have a company policy that offers a bonus if you work on a covered holiday. The precise arrangements of your employer’s policy will be set out in your employment contract. The extra pay generally comes on the next payday. The employers who opt for providing holiday pay are often businesses that cannot close on holidays, like:

restaurants,
retail stores, or
grocery stores.

These stores often pay a premium rate for holiday hours worked in order to incentivize you to work these high-demand hours. Some employees are willing or even eager to work during the holiday in order to earn more thanks to the extra pay.⁹

What can I do if I am entitled to holiday pay but not getting it?

If the employment contract or collective bargaining agreement promises extra holiday pay or a day off, but your employer is not providing it, your employer can be breaching the employment contract. You have legal recourse under California law.

You can file a complaint with the California Labor Board for a violation of state labor laws. This report can trigger an investigation by the Labor Commissioner’s Office.¹⁰

You can also hire a labor attorney to file a wage and hour lawsuit. This would demand compensation for the wages that should have been paid, but were not. If many employees have been deprived of their contractually promised holiday benefits, the lawsuit can be filed as a class action.

What about religious holidays?

If you take time off for a religious holiday, California employers are not required to pay you (unless it is their policy to).

Note that California law does require employers to accommodate your religious beliefs unless it would pose an undue hardship. An example of an accommodation would be to change your schedule so you can go to your church, temple, mosque, etc., to attend a religious observance.¹¹

What if my payday falls on a holiday?

If your payday falls on a holiday for which your office is closed, then your California employer can pay you the next business day. So if you are normally paid on Fridays – but the office is closed for New Year’s Day – then you would be paid the following Monday.¹²

Additional reading

For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:

Resolving Holiday Pay Disputes in Labor Arbitration – Case Western Reserve Law Review.
Holidays – Pepperdine Law Review article on what holidays entitle employees to compensation.
No-Vacation Nation Revisited – Center for Economic and Policy Research survey of various countries’ holiday pay policies.
Variations in holidays, vacations, and area pay levels – Monthly Labor Journal.
Recent Growth of Paid Leisure for U.S. Workers – Monthly Labor Journal.

Also see our related article on Do salaried employees get holiday pay?

Legal References:

See, for example, Advanced-Tech Security Services, Inc. v. Superior Court (Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, Division Five, 2008) 163 Cal. App. 4th 700.
See, for example, Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan, “The Data-Driven Case for Vacation,” Harvard Business Review (July 13, 2016). See also Tanya Mohn, Take A Vacation: It’s Good For Productivity And The Economy, According To A New Study, Forbes (Feb 28, 2014)(“If employees would take just one additional day of earned leave each year, the result would mean $73 billion in output for the U.S. economy and positive impacts for both employees and businesses.”).
5 USC 104 and 5 USC 105. The Executive branch includes government departments in the Executive branch, corporations controlled or owned by the federal government, and independent establishments or agencies within the Executive branch, like the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
5 CFR 550.131. See also AB-67 Double Pay on the Holiday Act of 2016 (never passed).
5 CFR 550.131(a) and 5 CFR 550.101(a)(1).
5 CFR 550.101(b). Some of the other Executive employees who are not entitled to holiday pay are: employees working abroad and who are paid using local wage rates at their places of work, civilians on a Coast Guard vessel, lighthouse keepers, Senior Foreign Service members, and student employees.
State Holidays, California Secretary of State. Holidays, Labor Commissioner’s Office.
See, for example, note 1.
See, for example, City of Sacramento v. Public Employees Retirement System (Court of Appeal of California, Third Appellate District, 1991) 229 Cal. App. 3d 1470. AB-2596 (2022).
How to File a Wage Claim, California Department of Industrial Relations.
California Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2012 (WRFA); California Government Code 12926(q)).
Paydays, pay periods, and the final wages, DLSE. California Government Code 6700.

About the Author

Neil Shouse

A former Los Angeles prosecutor, attorney Neil Shouse graduated with honors from UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School (and completed additional graduate studies at MIT). He has been featured on CNN, Good Morning America, Dr Phil, The Today Show and Court TV. Mr Shouse has been recognized by the National Trial Lawyers as one of the Top 100 Criminal and Top 100 Civil Attorneys.