Easter Monday 2026: Bank Holiday, Meaning & Traditions

Easter Monday is the day right after Easter Sunday, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it is a bank holiday that turns the Easter weekend into a relaxed four day break. In 2026 it falls on Monday 6 April. It is the second day of Eastertide, a day with deep roots in the Bible story and a surprising spread of traditions, from egg rolling on an English village green to a soaking on Wet Monday in Poland. Here is what the day is really about, what tends to be open or closed, and how it is marked around the world.

Is Easter Monday a bank holiday in the UK?

Yes, in most of the UK. Easter Monday is a bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is why so many of us get a long weekend that runs from Good Friday through to the Monday. The one exception is Scotland, where Easter Monday is not an official public holiday, so for most Scots it is a normal working Monday. Because the date of Easter shifts each year with the ecclesiastical March equinox, Easter Monday moves too. After 6 April 2026 it lands on 29 March 2027, then 17 April 2028.

What is open and what is closed?

For a bank holiday, Easter Monday is fairly quiet rather than fully shut. Most large retailers and shopping centres open as usual, though often on shorter bank holiday hours, so it is worth checking before you set off. Banks, many offices and most schools are closed. Public transport usually runs to a Sunday or special bank holiday timetable, and the roads can be busy as people travel home from short breaks and family visits. In Scotland the picture is closer to a normal Monday, with shops keeping their usual hours.

It is the perfect lazy morning, which is exactly why a cosy Easter pyjama set earns its keep on a holiday Monday with nowhere to be.

The Bible story behind Easter Monday

Easter Monday marks the day after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it carries a quiet, joyful story of its own. In the Gospel of Luke, two of Jesus' followers walk from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus on that first day of the week. A stranger joins them on the road and explains the scriptures, and only when he breaks bread at the table do they recognise that it is the risen Jesus himself. This Road to Emmaus appearance is read in many churches on Easter Monday, and in Austria and southern Germany people still take a commemorative walk called the Emmausgang to mark it. It is why some Christians call the day Angel Monday or Bright Monday, the start of a whole week of Easter celebration known as the Octave of Easter, or Bright Week in the Eastern church.

Why is Easter Monday a holiday at all?

The tradition of taking the Monday after Easter off in Britain goes back further than you might think. It grew out of the medieval festival of Hocktide, a two day celebration on the Monday and Tuesday after Easter that dates to the eleventh century. The old custom was playful and a little cheeky: in some tellings the men would good naturedly tie up the women and demand a kiss before letting them go, in others a man had to lift or carry a woman in return for that kiss. Today Hocktide survives in just one place, the town of Hungerford in Berkshire, where the main events now fall on the Tuesday after Easter.

British Easter Monday traditions

Around the country, Easter Monday still has its own local colour. Look out for these:

• Egg rolling. Hard boiled, decorated eggs are rolled down a grassy hill, a race that symbolises the stone rolling away from the tomb. It is a classic family event on village greens and in parks.
• Morris dancing and Easter bonnet parades. Traditional Morris sides perform, and children parade home made bonnets in spring colours.
• The Hallaton bottle kicking. In Leicestershire, the villages of Hallaton and Medbourne hold a rough, centuries old contest, hauling small wooden barrels across the fields between two streams a mile apart. The winning village takes the beer filled barrels back to the pub.
• The Biddenden Maids' dole. In Biddenden, Kent, special cakes are handed out in memory of conjoined twins said to have been born in 1100 and to have lived to the age of 34.

Easter Monday around the world

Beyond Britain, the day takes on wonderfully different forms. In Poland and across Central Europe it is Wet Monday, known as Śmigus-dyngus, when people playfully splash one another with water and tap each other with willow branches, an old fertility and renewal custom. Polish communities in the United States keep the fun alive as Dyngus Day, with big celebrations in cities like Buffalo and Chicago. In Ireland, Easter Monday is a day of remembrance for the 1916 Easter Rising, which began on that date. Australia treats it as a public holiday filled with outdoor sport, while in the United States it is best known for the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn. In more than fifty mainly Christian countries, the day is some form of public holiday.

Make the most of the long weekend

However you spend it, Easter Monday is really a gift of unhurried time: a final lie in before the week begins, a leftover roast, a walk in the spring air, or an egg hunt in the garden. If little ones are home for the holiday, soft kids' Easter clothes turn an ordinary Monday into a treat. So enjoy the four day weekend while it lasts, because the next one, the early May bank holiday, is only a few weeks away.

Sources: Easter Monday (Wikipedia) and UK bank holidays (GOV.UK).