Do salaried employees get holiday pay? Not automatically. No federal law requires private employers to give any employee — salaried or otherwise — a paid day off for a holiday. What protects most salaried workers isn’t a holiday-pay mandate at all; it’s a separate federal rule that generally bars employers from cutting an exempt employee’s weekly salary when the office closes. Whether you actually receive a paid holiday, and on what terms, comes down to your classification, your employer’s policy, your contract, and in a few cases your state.
No Federal Law Requires Holiday Pay
The Fair Labor Standards Act does not require payment for time not worked, and that includes holidays.1U.S. Department of Labor. Holiday Pay The federal holidays listed in 5 U.S.C. § 6103 are legal public holidays for federal employees only; private employers are free to work through every one of them.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 6103 – Holidays The FLSA also does not require premium pay for working on a holiday unless the hours push you past 40 for the workweek.3U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay
Any paid holiday you receive comes from one of three places: your employer’s voluntary policy, your employment contract, or a collective bargaining agreement. The Department of Labor states that holiday benefits are “generally a matter of agreement between an employer and an employee (or the employee’s representative).”1U.S. Department of Labor. Holiday Pay Even so, roughly 81 percent of private-sector workers had access to paid holidays as of 2025, averaging eight days a year.4Bureau of Labor Statistics. Paid Sick Leave Was Available to 80 Percent of Private Industry Workers in 2025
The Salary Basis Rule Protects Your Paycheck
Here’s the piece salaried workers often miss. Even though your employer doesn’t have to give you a paid holiday, they usually can’t dock your pay when the office is closed for one. Under federal regulations, if you are an exempt salaried employee and you perform any work during a given workweek, you must receive your full salary for that week regardless of how many days the office was actually open.5eCFR. 29 CFR 541.602 – Salary Basis
The rule goes further. Deductions from an exempt employee’s predetermined salary are prohibited when the absence is caused by the employer or by the operating requirements of the business. If you are ready, willing, and able to work but the office is closed for a holiday, your employer cannot reduce your pay for that day.5eCFR. 29 CFR 541.602 – Salary Basis A salaried exempt worker who puts in Monday through Wednesday of Thanksgiving week and then has Thursday and Friday off because the company shuts down receives the same paycheck as any other week.
Employers who routinely make improper deductions face more than a simple underpayment claim. A pattern of docking exempt employees can undermine the exempt classification itself and expose the employer to back-overtime liability.
Exempt vs. Non-Exempt Salaried Employees
Whether you qualify as exempt under the FLSA depends on your salary level and your job duties. To be exempt from overtime, you generally need to earn at least $684 per week ($35,568 annually) on a salary basis and perform executive, administrative, or professional duties as defined by the regulations.6U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17A – Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the FLSA A federal court vacated a 2024 rule that would have raised the threshold, so the $684-per-week floor from the 2019 rule remains in effect. A separate “highly compensated employee” exemption applies to workers earning at least $107,432 per year under a less rigorous duties test.7U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption
Classification changes the practical answer to your question. Exempt employees are covered by the salary basis rule, which effectively guarantees full weekly pay when the office closes. Non-exempt salaried employees are paid based on hours worked and only get holiday pay if the employer’s policy or contract provides it. An exempt worker sees the same paycheck whether the company closes for one holiday or three; a non-exempt salaried worker’s pay for those days depends entirely on what the employer has promised.
What Employers Typically Offer
Employer policies vary considerably. Most companies designate a set list of paid holidays, commonly including New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Some offer “floating holidays” that let employees choose their own days. Others fold holiday pay into a single PTO bank where vacation, sick days, and holidays draw from the same pool.
Industries that require continuous staffing, like healthcare, transportation, and hospitality, often handle holidays differently. Employees who work on a designated holiday may receive premium pay, commonly 1.5 times the regular rate, as a company incentive rather than a legal requirement. These terms are typically spelled out in employee handbooks or offer letters.
Eligibility Strings to Watch For
Many employers attach conditions to holiday pay. A common one is the “surrounding days” rule: you must work your scheduled shifts on the day before and the day after the holiday to qualify for the paid day off. Probationary employees and part-time workers may also be excluded. These eligibility rules are legal as long as they are applied consistently and communicated in writing.
State Laws, Contracts, and Union Agreements
A handful of states layer additional requirements on top of federal law, though most apply only to specific industries or to work performed on designated state holidays rather than to holiday pay generally. Only one state currently requires private employers to pay a premium rate for holiday work across most industries. For remote employees, the obligation typically follows the state where the worker is physically located, not where the company is headquartered.
When an employment contract specifies paid holidays, those terms are legally binding, and failure to honor them supports a breach-of-contract claim. Specific language matters: a contract that names each covered day gives you more to enforce than one referring vaguely to “standard company holidays.”
In unionized workplaces, holiday pay is a mandatory subject of bargaining, and employers must negotiate in good faith over wages, hours, and vacation time.8National Labor Relations Board. Employer/Union Rights and Obligations Collective bargaining agreements typically lock in specific paid holidays, premium rates, and sometimes additional floating days or compensatory time. They also establish a grievance process, and union members generally cannot skip that process and go straight to court unless the CBA clearly permits it.
Religious Holidays Are a Separate Question
If your religious observance falls on a workday that isn’t one of your employer’s designated paid holidays, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires reasonable accommodation of sincerely held religious practices, which can include schedule changes, shift swaps, or time off.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Fact Sheet – Religious Accommodations in the Workplace In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court held in 2023 that an employer must show the accommodation would result in “substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business” before denying it, replacing the lower “more than a de minimis cost” standard courts had used for decades.10Supreme Court of the United States. Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023) Title VII does not require the accommodation to be paid, though. An employer can satisfy the law with unpaid leave, a floating holiday, a PTO day, or a schedule swap. Whether the religious day off is paid still turns on your employer’s policy or contract.
Accrued Holiday Pay When You Leave
If your employer rolls holiday pay into a PTO bank or lets unused holiday time accrue, what happens to that balance at separation depends largely on your state. Roughly 20 states require employers to pay out unused PTO on termination, though many allow a written forfeiture policy to override that requirement. The remaining states leave payout to employer discretion, meaning your handbook or contract controls.
Check your employee handbook for two things: whether unused holiday time carries over year to year or whether the company uses a “use it or lose it” policy, and whether accrued time is paid out at separation. If the handbook is silent and you’ve built up a meaningful balance, ask HR to clarify in writing before you give notice.