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Spain’s public and regional holidays in 2023: How to make the most of them

2023 will be a good year for long weekends and bank holidays. Here’s how to plan ahead and turn Spain's national and regional holidays into extended breaks without using up your annual leave.

Published: 5 October 2022 17:13 CEST
SPAIN-PUBLIC-HOLIDAYS-2023
A huge Spanish flag covers the façade of a building in Valdebebas in Madrid. In 2023 pretty much everybody in Spain will have at least 7 'puentes' to enjoy. (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)

People in every region of Spain will enjoy 14 public holidays in 2023, 8 of which are national holidays that can’t be omitted or replaced from the calendar. 

What’s more, 4 of these 8 fall on Monday or Friday, which give you the option of taking a three-day weekend without having to book out any leave from work. 

Two others fall on a Tuesday and a Thursday, which means that by taking one day off from work you can have four days off in a row. 

Spain’s public holidays in 2023 are:

  • Friday April 7th: Good Friday (Viernes Santo)
  • Monday May 1st: May Day (Día del Trabajo)
  • Tuesday August 15th: Assumption of Mary (Asunción de la Virgen)
  • Thursday October 12th: Spain’s National Day (Día Nacional)
  • Wednesday November 1st:  All Saints Day (Día de Todos los Santos)
  • Wednesday December 6th: Constitution Day (Día de la Constitución)
  • Friday December 8th: Immaculate Conception (Inmaculada Concepción)
  • Monday December 25th: Christmas Day (Navidad)

Spain’s official national holidays list is missing two key dates: Three Kings Day (which falls on Friday January 6th and is a holiday in all of Spain’s regions) and New Year’s Day. 

Because January 1st 2023 falls on a Sunday, not all regions are making Monday January 2nd a holiday; so far only Andalusia, Murcia, Aragón, Asturias and Castilla Y León.

Everyone in Spain will also get at least 2 days off for Easter. Apart from Friday April 7th (which is a holiday across Spain), Maundy Thursday 6th will be a holiday in every region except Catalonia and the Valencia region, which instead have Monday April 10th off. In the Balearics, La Rioja, Navarre and the Basque Country it’s a holiday on Thursday, Friday and Monday, which equates to five days off in a row.

It’s worth noting as well that the December 2023 puente (how Spaniards refer to ‘bridging’ the days between official public holidays and the weekend to maximise time off) has two public holidays on a Wednesday and a Friday and can therefore be turned into a five-day holiday by just taking one day of leave.

That means that overall in 2023, pretty much everybody in Spain will have at least 7 puentes to enjoy, and they will only have to take 3 days off in total from their annual leave to enjoy all of them. 

So apart from Spain’s public holidays and the differences in New Years’ and Easter holidays that we’ve covered above, what other regional holidays can residents in Spain look forward to?

Well, each region has at least its own specific holiday to celebrate its region and heritage, many of which fall on Mondays and Fridays, allowing for even more long weekends. 

Keep in mind that there are also festivos (holidays) in specific provinces, cities and towns and even islands, such as in the Canary Islands, where each island enjoys its own day off.

Spain’s regional holidays in 2023 are:

Andalusia: Tuesday February 28th (Andalusia Day)

Aragón: Monday April 24th (Aragón Day)

Asturias: Friday September 8th (Asturias Day)

Balearics: Wednesday March 1st (Balearics Day)

Canary Islands: Tuesday May 30th (Canaries Day)

Cantabria: Friday July 28th (Cantabria Day), Friday September 15th (La Bien Aparecida)

Castilla-La Mancha: Wednesday May 31st (Castilla-La Mancha Day), Thursday June 8th (Corpus Christi)

Castilla y León: Tuesday July 25th (Saint James Day)

Catalonia: Monday September 11th (Catalonia Day), Tuesday December 26h (San Esteban)

Madrid: Monday March 20th (San José Day), Tuesday May 2nd (Madrid Day)

Valencia region: October 9th (Valencia Day)

Extremadura: Tuesday February 21st (Carnival Tuesday), Friday September 8th (Extremadura Day)

Galicia: Wednesday May 17th (Galician Writing Day), Tuesday July 25th (Galicia Day)

La Rioja: Friday June 9th (La Rioja Day) 

Murcia: Friday June 9th (Murcia Day)

Navarre: Tuesday July 25th (Saint James Day)

Basque Country: Tuesday July 25th (Saint James Day)

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WORKING IN SPAIN

Why Aragón is on its way to becoming Spain’s next Silicon Valley

Tech giants Amazon and Microsoft are both investing heavily in Spain's northeastern region of Aragón, turning it into a huge hub for data centres that will create thousands of new jobs. It's an unexpected but strategic choice.

Published: 4 July 2024 10:30 CEST
Why Aragón is on its way to becoming Spain's next Silicon Valley

In recent years, Málaga had come to be known as ‘the Silicon Valley of Europe’ after Google and hundreds more tech companies established their European headquarters in the Costa del Sol city.

This has had a huge impact on the local economy and drawn in lots of foreign talent, with some unintended consequences in the process. 

However, another region of Spain is now being favoured by some of the global tech giants: Aragón, the region which houses the city of Zaragoza.

The northeastern region is set to become a hub for international data centres, large groups of networked computer servers which are essential for big companies that depend on digital data, as they’re used for remote storage, processing, or distribution of large amounts of data.

Amazon and Microsoft have both chosen Aragón as their data centre hub for southern Europe.

Last May, Amazon’s cloud computing division AWS announced it will invest €15.7 billion in data centres in Aragón through to 2033.

The investment will reportedly create around 17,500 indirect jobs in local companies and contribute €21.6 billion to Spain’s gross domestic product during the period, Amazon said in a statement.

“This new commitment by AWS spotlights our country’s attractiveness as a strategic tech hub in southern Europe,” Spanish Digital Transformation Minister José Luis Escrivá said in a statement.

This July, Microsoft confirmed as well that it would invest heavily in Aragón, specifically €2.2 billion in a huge data centre project.

“This is great news for the Aragonese economy,” said regional leader Jorge Azcón, highlighting the economic benefits expected from this investment which he believes will have “a knock-on effect” in attracting other companies.

Microsoft had already announced in October its intention to build a data centre campus in Aragón to provide “cloud services to European companies and public bodies” without saying how much investment that would entail. Now it looks like plans definitely go ahead.

Citing figures provided by the IDC consultancy, Microsoft said the project with its 88-hectare (217-acre) campus could “contribute to the creation of more than 2,100 technology jobs in Aragón between 2026 and 2030”.

So why Aragón, a Spanish region that aside from its capital Zaragoza is vastly underpopulated and undeveloped?

One reason is that data centres require locations with a robust electrical capacity, given that data farms consume a vast amount of energy.

In that respect, Aragón is an ideal location due to its ample sunshine and strong wind exposure that have given way to both solar and wind farms.

Other factors that have worked in Aragon’s favour include its robust links to Spain’s communications networks and the region’s geostrategic location, mid-way between Madrid and Barcelona, and with other major cities such as Bilbao and Valencia within relatively close reach.

Data centres also need land. In general, data farms require a high number of hectares. The surfaces range, for example, from the 147 hectares of AWS in the Polígono Empresarium in Zaragoza to 62 hectares near the Walqa Technology Park in Huesca and an additional 44 hectares in El Burgo de Ebro.

Being a vast region (47,719 km²) , Aragón has plenty of space available, coupled with the fact that its population density of 27.8 inhabitants per square metre means that there’s lot of room to build.

Seismic activity is also a decisive factor when tech companies choose locations for data centres, with a preference for  areas in which there is less or no incidence of earthquakes to guarantee its correct functioning. Around 88 percent of the Aragonese territory has a seismic acceleration below 0.040 g, that is, an intensity threshold, which is the lowest in the whole of Spain. 

READ ALSO: What are the pros and cons of life in Spain’s Zaragoza and Aragón?

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