Do interns get paid for holidays? Usually not, unless your employer has promised it in writing or you fall into one of a few specific categories. Federal law does not require holiday pay for anyone, intern or otherwise, so whether your paycheck covers Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, or Christmas depends on your offer letter, your employer’s policies, and how you’re classified.
Why Federal Law Doesn’t Require Holiday Pay
The Fair Labor Standards Act, the main federal wage law, requires employers to pay at least $7.25 per hour for hours worked. It says nothing about paying for hours not worked. The Department of Labor puts it directly: holiday pay is “generally a matter of agreement between an employer and an employee.”1U.S. Department of Labor. Holiday Pay
That agreement lives in your offer letter, the employee handbook, or a union contract. If none of those documents promise holiday pay, none is owed. This applies to every private-sector worker, not just interns. Full-time employees who get paid holidays receive them because their employer chose to offer the benefit. Interns fall into the gap more often because temporary staff are less likely to get discretionary benefits extended to them.
Hourly Interns: A Closed Office Means a Smaller Paycheck
Most paid internships pay by the hour, and hourly workers earn only for hours actually worked. If the office shuts for Memorial Day or Christmas and you don’t clock in, you have no legal right to be paid for that day. The gap adds up quickly. An intern earning $18 an hour who loses two eight-hour days over a holiday week sees $288 vanish from that paycheck. It’s worth budgeting for these gaps at the start of your internship, especially around Thanksgiving and the winter shutdown many employers take between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Your offer letter or handbook can change that answer. Some employers extend paid holidays to interns as a recruiting tool, particularly in competitive fields like tech and finance. If paid holidays were promised to you in writing, that promise is enforceable as part of your employment agreement, even though federal law didn’t require the employer to make it in the first place.
Salaried Interns: Different Rules
Salaried internships are less common but they exist, particularly in programs that mirror entry-level professional roles. If you’re classified as exempt and paid on a salary basis, the calculation flips. Federal regulations require that an exempt employee receive their full weekly salary for any week in which they perform any work, regardless of how many days the office was open. Employers also cannot dock a salaried exempt employee’s pay for absences the employer itself caused, like closing the office for a holiday.2eCFR. 29 CFR 541.602 – Salary Basis
So if you work Monday through Wednesday and the office closes Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving, your full weekly salary should still land in your account. The employer chose to close; that’s not your absence to absorb.
If You Work on a Holiday
Retail, healthcare, and hospitality internships often include holiday shifts. The rule there is straightforward: federal law does not require premium pay for holiday work. No time-and-a-half, no double-time. You’re owed your regular hourly rate for every hour worked on a holiday, the same as any other day.3eCFR. 29 CFR Part 778 – Overtime Compensation Premium holiday pay, when it exists, is a policy choice or a contract term, not a legal requirement.
Overtime is where the law does step in. Holiday hours count toward your total weekly hours like any other workday. If a holiday shift pushes you past 40 hours in the week, every hour over 40 must be paid at one and a half times your regular rate.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 207 – Maximum Hours An intern earning $16 an hour who works 44 hours in a week that includes a holiday shift would earn $16 for the first 40 hours and $24 for each of the remaining four.
Federal Government Interns
The answer changes if you’re interning with a federal agency. The federal government recognizes 11 paid holidays, from New Year’s Day through Christmas.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 6103 – Holidays Whether you get paid for them depends on your appointment type, not just your intern status.
Federal interns hired through the Pathways Program are appointed to actual federal positions and can work part-time or full-time schedules. If you hold a part-time or full-time appointment with a regular schedule, you’re generally entitled to paid holidays like other federal employees. The catch is intermittent appointments. Employees on intermittent work schedules, where hours aren’t guaranteed from week to week, are not entitled to paid holiday time off or holiday premium pay.6U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Holidays Work Schedules and Pay Some agency internships use intermittent appointments for flexibility, and those interns lose holiday pay as a result. Your appointment paperwork, typically the SF-50 or offer letter, will show which category you fall into.
Unpaid Interns
Holiday pay only becomes a question if you’re a paid intern to begin with. The Department of Labor uses a seven-factor “primary beneficiary test” to decide whether an intern at a for-profit company qualifies as an employee under the FLSA. If the internship primarily benefits you rather than the employer (through academic tie-in, classroom-like training, limited duration, and other factors), the arrangement can legally be unpaid, and there’s no holiday compensation to argue about.7U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 71 – Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act If most factors tilt toward the employer being the primary beneficiary, you should be classified as an employee and paid at least minimum wage for every hour worked.
How to Check What You’re Owed
Read your paperwork before the first holiday arrives. Three documents give you the answer:
- Your offer letter. This is where holiday pay, when it’s offered, usually appears explicitly. If the letter is silent on holidays, the internship almost always is too.
- The employee handbook. Some companies include interns in the same holiday schedule as full-time staff; others carve out a separate policy for temporary or part-time workers.
- Your timesheet or payroll system. After your first holiday, check how the day was coded. Payroll errors run in both directions, and catching one early is easier than untangling it later.
If you think you’ve been misclassified as unpaid when you should be a paid employee, or if an employer isn’t paying you for hours you actually worked, you can file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243. The DOL investigates at no cost to the worker, and retaliation for filing a complaint is illegal under the FLSA.