In 49 U.S. states, there is no legal requirement that private companies have to provide part-time workers with holiday pay. Only Rhode Island requires it. However, companies can choose to provide it. Many do so in order to attract better talent and improve workplace morale. Among public employees, only certain federal part-time employees are legally entitled to holiday pay.
No legal requirement for holiday pay
In the U.S., there is no federal law that requires holiday pay for part-time employees of private companies. Only one state law requires it. This means it is generally not mandatory for companies to either:
- pay you extra for work done on a holiday, or
- give you the day off but pay you for a full day.
On the federal level, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require it. Instead, it only requires that you be compensated for hours worked. Therefore, if you do not work on a holiday, the FLSA does not require that you be paid. If you do work on a holiday, you are not entitled to a higher rate of pay under the FLSA.
On the state level, only Rhode Island makes holiday pay mandatory. That holiday pay comes in the form of premium pay at 1.5 times your regular rate of pay. You can also refuse to work on covered holidays without being retaliated against.[1] Some employees, however, are exempt from this holiday pay entitlement.[2]
Massachusetts used to require premium pay for hours worked on a holiday. However, a new law ended that requirement in 2023. Instead, workers can refuse to work on a holiday without retaliation.[3]
Companies often choose paid holidays
Nevertheless, some companies still choose to provide holiday pay for part-time employees. The company’s policies for paid holidays will be governed by your employment contract. This includes your employee handbook. If you are in a union, it would be in your collective bargaining agreement.
The employment lawyers at our law firm have found that the three most common company policies are:
- all employees are entitled to holiday pay,
- no employees are entitled to holiday pay, and
- only full-time employees are entitled to it.
The policy should also include the company’s list of recognized holidays. It should also indicate whether holiday pay means either:
- a paid day off,
- premium pay for working on the holiday, or
- an unpaid day off but a day of paid time off (PTO) or vacation time for you to use when you want to.
Companies may offer part-time workers holiday time to:
- improve workplace morale,
- get holiday shifts covered,
- compensate you for time that you could have spent with friends or family,
- attract better workers by offering them higher holiday pay than their competitors are offering, or
- keep workers from leaving for a competitor that offers better working conditions and employee benefits.
However, companies may decide only to recognize a couple of holidays. According to Statista:
“About 24 percent of part-time civilian workers with paid holidays had fewer than 5 paid holidays in the U.S., and only 2 percent had 12 days of paid holidays”[4]
If you do not have your employment contract or handbook, you can get one from your human resources department.
Some federal part-time employees are entitled to it
Federal law provides double-time pay, or twice your regular rate, to employees who work on a federal holiday in:
- an Executive Branch department,
- any independent agency in the Executive Branch, such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO), or
- a corporation controlled or owned by the federal government.[5]
Exceptions include the following workers:
- elected officials,
- heads of departments,
- foreign employees who are paid according to local law or custom,
- student employees,
- civilians on a Coast Guard vessel,
- members of the Senior Foreign Service, and
- [6]
Part-time workers are not among the exceptions, though. Therefore, they are among those with eligibility to double-time pay for holidays worked.
The federal holidays that are covered are:
- New Year’s Day,
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day,
- Washington’s Birthday, also known as President’s Day,
- Memorial Day,
- Juneteenth,
- Independence Day, also known as July 4th,
- Labor Day,
- Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day,
- Veterans Day,
- Thanksgiving, and
- Christmas Day.[7]
Calculating holiday pay
If you are a part-time worker and your employment contract offers holiday pay, calculating it would depend on the company’s policies.
If your company’s policy is to give you a paid day off, you generally must have been scheduled to work that day. You would typically receive your regular rate of pay for the hours that you had been scheduled to work, or that you typically worked on that day of the week.
For example: Chris’ work schedule has him working 10 hours per week – 5 on Thursdays and 5 on Fridays. He is entitled to 5 hours of holiday pay for Thanksgiving Day, which falls on Thursday. If Labor Day is on a Monday, however, he would not get any holiday pay for it.
If your company’s policy is to provide premium pay, then each hour that you work on the holiday would be paid at the higher rate.
For example: Chris’ employer changes its policy to provide premium pay at 1.5 times the regular rate for holiday work. Chris typically makes $20 per hour. Instead of getting $100 and the day off for Thanksgiving, Chris now works his normal 5 hours but gets paid $150.
Overtime pay
Your holiday work hours may put you over the threshold for overtime pay. The federal threshold for overtime pay is 40 hours in a workweek. Any hours worked in excess of this number of hours must be paid at 1.5 times your regular rate of pay.[8] Some states, like California, have additional thresholds for overtime pay for consecutive days or a single workday.[9]
While this is rare for part-time workers, it can happen if your normal working hours are close to full-time.
Recourse if your employer is not paying it
If you are entitled to holiday pay under your employment contract, but your employer is refusing to pay it, then you can file a wage/hour lawsuit. If successful, this would recover your unpaid wages.
Rules in other countries
Many other countries require holiday pay for part-time employees in their employment laws. Among them are:
- Canada, where all employees are entitled to extra pay equal to 1/20th of their regular pay earned in the previous 4 weeks, plus 1.5 times their regular pay rate if they work on the holiday rather than getting a vacation day,[10] and
- Mexico, where all hours worked on national holidays are paid at 3 times the regular rate of pay.[11]
Legal Citations:
[1] Rhode Island General Laws 25-3-3.
[2] Rhode Island General Laws 25-3-1(3).
[3] Chapter 358 of the Acts of 2020.
[4] Statista, “Share of full-time and part-time civilian workers in the United States as of March 2022, by number of paid holidays provided,” (Dec. 7, 2023).
[5] 5 CFR 550.131 and 5 USC sections 104 and 105.
[6] 5 CFR 550.101(b).
[7] 5 CFR 550.131, 550.103, 610.202, and 5 USC 6103(a).
[8] 29 USC 207.
[9] California Labor Code 510 LAB.
[10] Canada Labour Code, RSC 1985, C L-2, sections 196 and 197.
[11] Ley Federal del Trabajo (Federal Labor Law), articles 73 and 74.
