April Public Holidays 2025
Apr 11, 2025With the Easter long weekend and ANZAC day around the corner, April is shaping up to be a month of well-deserved breaks!
In Australia, depending on which state or territory you live in, the upcoming public holidays may differ. To ensure everyone is across the upcoming public holidays and key requirements, we’ve put together a quick guide.
Working on Public holidays:
There’s lots of discussion around whether employees can be required to work on public holidays. Hopefully this information helps distinguish what’s reasonable or not.
Essentially, an employer can request for an employee to work on a public holiday, as long as the request is reasonable. Employees have every right to decline the request to work if the request is unreasonable or the employee has reasonable grounds.
So what is considered a ‘reasonable’ request?
Employers should consider the following before requesting an employee to work on a public holiday:
- The role and nature of work the employee does
- The employees personal circumstances
- i.e caring responsibilities or kids being off from school
- employment type
- full time, part time or casual
- if casual – it is in the nature of the employment type for the employee to accept or deny shifts
- the nature of the workplace
- the amount of notice provided
- any applicable overtime or penalty rates the employee may receive
- any other relevant factors!
Public holiday pay:
If the public holiday falls on a day where the employee would normally have worked, the employee will be paid their base rate for the number of ordinary hours they would have worked. A base rate doesn’t include any bonuses, loadings, overtime, penalties or incentive based payments.
Let's break it down with some examples:
- Johnny is a part time employee who works Tuesday and Thursday each week. Good Friday falls on Friday the 18th of April this year. Johnny does not get paid for the Good Friday public holiday as he is not rostered to work Fridays.
- Rachel is a full time employee and works 38 hours per week. Monday 21st of April is the Easter Monday public holiday. As Rachel would have normally been at work on Monday, she will be paid her base rate of pay for the ordinary hours she would have worked. If Rachel typically works overtime hours on a Monday, she would not be entitled to payment for overtime hours as they fall outside ordinary hours.
Public Holidays and leave:
Paid leave -
If a public holiday lands during an employees annual leave, good news -- it won't eat into your leave balance. You will get paid for the public holiday.
Unpaid leave –
If an employee is on unpaid leave, such as unpaid carer’s leave, unpaid parental leave and unpaid community service leave, the employee won't get paid for a public holiday during that time.
Example!
- Amelia is a full time employee and has taken 5 days of annual leave for a holiday. The annual leave includes Good Friday, which is a public holiday. Amelia is typically required to work on a Friday as per her ordinary hours, therefore the public holiday is not taken from her annual leave balance and 4 days of annual leave will be taken.
Public holidays falling on a weekend
We are often asked what happens in terms of public holiday pay when a public holiday falls on a weekend, such as Easter Sunday. Essentially, in every state across Australia, except for Tasmania, Easter Sunday is considered a public holiday. See the table above to view which public holidays Fair Work have advised are applicable per state. Employee's should also check their award to determine public holiday pay rates.
If you have any questions regarding the above or would like to touch base with the Employii team, feel free to reach out via [email protected]
From the team at Employii, we hope everyone enjoys time off over the month of April!
Author: Jess Roughsedge (HR Consultant)
