What a non-working day means for court deadlines
Working days are those on which judicial actions may validly take place and on which procedural deadlines run. Article 182 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary (LOPJ) declares non-working, for procedural purposes, Saturdays and Sundays, national holidays and the holidays that are non-working for labor purposes in the relevant autonomous community or town. On top of that, two rules specific to the judicial calendar apply: article 183 LOPJ declares the whole month of August non-working for judicial actions, except those the procedural laws consider urgent; and, following the LO 14/2022 reform (arts. 182-183 LOPJ and art. 130.2 LEC, in force since 23 December 2022), the whole period from 24 December to 6 January inclusive is also non-working.
So, to know whether a given day is a working day at a court, three things must be checked: whether it is a weekend, whether it falls in August or in the Christmas period from 24 December to 6 January, and which holidays —national, regional and local— apply in that town. This tool cross-checks those criteria for 2026 and for each autonomous community.
The criminal exception: the investigation never rests
In criminal matters the general rule is reversed for a key phase. Article 201 of the Criminal Procedure Act (LECrim) provides that “every day and hour of the year is a working day for the investigation of criminal cases, without the need for special authorization”. A search, an arrest or a statement may take place on a Saturday, in August or at Christmas, which is why duty courts operate; if the detention is extended irregularly, a habeas corpus application is available. A different matter is the computation of deadlines to appeal, to file defense pleadings or to serve documents: those deadlines are counted as in every other jurisdiction, excluding non-working days.
How deadlines are computed
Deadlines set in days are counted excluding non-working days (art. 133 LEC, applied additionally): they start running the day after service and, if the last day is non-working, they are extended to the next working day. In addition, a pleading subject to a deadline may be filed until 3:00 p.m. on the following working day (art. 135 LEC). Deadlines set in months or years are computed from date to date (art. 133 LEC and art. 5 of the Civil Code), without deducting the intervening non-working days; if the final day is non-working, it moves to the next working day.
Regional and local holidays
Alongside the national holidays, each autonomous community sets its own (the community day, Maundy Thursday or Easter Monday depending on the territory, etc.), published each year in the Official State Gazette within the labor calendar. To these are added two local holidays per municipality, which are also non-working at the corresponding court and are not included in this tool because they vary from town to town. The 2026 data come from the official labor calendar (Resolution of the Directorate-General for Labor, BOE) and from the State's official calendar of non-working days.