According to the Labor Code, the four Easter holidays – from April 18 to April 21 inclusive – are declared official holidays, therefore, for work performed on them, the employer owes at least a double increase. If the work is also overtime, it is also paid with an additional 100% increase.
According to the Labor Code, only on official holidays that coincide with Saturday and/or Sunday, the first or first two working days after them are absent, the Labor Inspectorate reminds. The four Easter holidays are excluded from this provision, as they are always from Friday to Monday and, according to the law, are not compensated with additional days off.
For employees working on an irregular working day or on a daily basis, work performed on public holidays, as well as on days off and days off, is always overtime. Overtime work is mandatory assigned by an order of the employer, with which the employees must be informed at least 24 hours before the start of its performance.
For employees working on a schedule - when calculating working hours in aggregate, work on a public holiday is not overtime and their wages should only be increased by 100%. With the introduction of a summarized calculation of working hours, the employer is obliged to prepare a named schedule for the entire period, which cannot be longer than 4 months.
In May, official holidays are May 1 (Labor Day), May 6 (St. George's Day) and May 24 (Day of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius, of the Bulgarian Alphabet, Education and Culture and of Slavic Literature). According to the legislative provisions, only on May 24 there will be an additional day off on May 26 (Monday). For those working on this day, only the overtime worked is paid with an increase of 75%.
The "General Labor Inspectorate" (GIT) reports an increase in violations in the payment of labor during official holidays. According to the Agency's data for the first three months of 2025. The established violations of labor remuneration are 5357. Of these, 2398 are related to the payment of additional remuneration to employees, such as those for work on official holidays and for overtime work. Violations of labor remuneration on official holidays are 533, compared to 379 for the same period last year. The established violations of overtime remuneration are 154, and for 2024 the violations were 133.
In order to protect their labor rights to the fullest extent, the Labor Inspectorate advises workers and employees to have written evidence that they worked on holidays and days of absence, such as the order for assigning overtime work or the name schedule.