Last updated on October 10, 2025
How Do I Set Holidays?
Each Location in Vacation Tracker gets its own holiday calendar. You can either import a standard set by country and state, or build your own list of custom holidays — including recurring ones, multi-day observances, and half-day cutoffs.
Getting to the Holidays Tab
- Sign in at app.vacationtracker.io.
- In the left-hand menu, expand Leave Setup and click Locations.
- On the Location card, click Edit Holidays (or click into the Location and switch to the Holidays tab).
You'll see three year tabs — Holidays for [current year], Holidays for [next year], and Past holidays — plus two action buttons at the top right: Import Holidays and Add a Holiday.
Option 1: Import Holidays
Use this when you want the standard set of public holidays for a country or region. Import Holidays is a 3-step wizard with visual progress indicators at the top (Select country → Select holidays → Confirm).
- Click Import Holidays at the top right of the Holidays tab. You'll land on Step 1.
- Select country: Pick the year (defaults to the current year) and the country (and state/province if applicable). Click Next.
- Select holidays: A list of holidays for that country appears with some pre-selected. Use the Filter by Holiday Type option (Observance / Public) to narrow things down. Check or uncheck so only the holidays your organization observes stay selected. Click Next.
- Confirm: Review the final list of holidays you're about to import. You'll also see an option to automatically import these holidays for future years — tick it if you want Vacation Tracker to handle the rollover. Click Import to finish.
The holidays are added to the Location and every user in that Location gets them. Use the Back button in the wizard at any time to revisit earlier steps; no import happens until you click Import on the final step.
Option 2: Add a Custom Holiday
Use this for company-specific observances, floating holidays, or anything that isn't in the standard country list.
- Click Add a Holiday at the top right of the Holidays tab.
- Fill in the form — see the field reference below.
- Click Save.
Add a Holiday — Field Reference
Name
The display name for the holiday (e.g., "Company Founding Day").
Assign to Locations
The Location this holiday applies to. Defaults to the Location you came from.
Recurring holiday?
Yes / No. Set to Yes if this holiday repeats every year; No for a one-off. Yes reveals additional recurrence fields.
Holiday type
Three options: Single-day holiday, Multi-day holiday, or Half-day holiday. Pick Single-day for normal holidays, Multi-day for observances spanning several consecutive days, Half-day for early closures — see How Do I Enable Half-Day Holidays? for that flow.
Date
Present when Recurring = No. Pick the exact date (or date range, for Multi-day).
Recurrence type (when Recurring = Yes)
Two options:
Starts on (optional)
Month and Day pickers for the recurring holiday's anchor date.
Transfer to the next working day when falls on weekends
Yes / No. If Yes, a holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday automatically shifts to the next working day. Matches how many "substitute day" rules work for public holidays.
What Happens After You Save
Holidays you set up (imported or custom) behave like non-working days for everyone in the Location:
Common Questions
Yes — holidays live inside a Location, so you need to create the Location first. See How Do I Create a Location?
The Add a Holiday form has an Assign to Locations dropdown, which in principle supports multi-select. For imported holidays, you'll import them per Location. If you have the same public holiday across several Locations, import them separately for each.
The curated list labels each holiday by type. Public holidays are statutory days off; Observance holidays are culturally recognized but not mandated. Use the Filter by Holiday Type option to show only one category at a time — most teams import just the Public ones.
Yes — use the edit (pencil) icon next to the holiday in the Holidays tab. Imported holidays only let you edit the name; custom holidays are fully editable.
If a leave request is submitted for one day only, and on that day there is a holiday, they will get an error: "You have selected a holiday or a non-working day. Please select a valid date range."
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