Fun facts: Summer holiday season in Europe
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the longest summer holidays of them all?
Summer school holidays have now begun in many European countries. However, their duration varies significantly from country to country. Eurydice, the European education information network, features a chart on its website showing, among other things, the number of summer holiday days in European countries. It also allows you to see how many other breaks lasting longer than one or two weeks these countries have outside of the summer holidays. Logically, the more weeks of holiday a country has outside the summer period, the fewer summer holiday days it has.
So, which country has the most summer holiday days in 2026? It is Italy, with an incredible 97 days—equivalent to more than three months of summer holidays. The Netherlands, Denmark, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland have the fewest, with 42 days—closely followed by Germany with 44 summer holiday days. Italy thus has more than twice as many summer holiday days as the four countries with the shortest breaks. In return, of course, Italy has fewer long breaks during the rest of the year: there is only one other holiday period lasting a week or longer. All other breaks last only a few days.
Want to check the summer holiday dates for other countries?
