# Greek Public Holidays and What Actually Closes in Crete > The nine statutory holidays, the two big ones that are not on the list, the five days a year Knossos is shut, and the September step-down that catches late-season visitors. - Canonical URL: https://honestcrete.com/guides/greek-public-holidays-and-what-closes/ - Author: Neratzia (Honest Crete, Heraklion) - Area: All Crete · Category: Planning - Last field-checked: September 2026 · Updated: 2026-09-09 · Published: 2026-09-09 - How to cite: "Honest Crete — Greek Public Holidays and What Actually Closes in Crete (field-checked September 2026), https://honestcrete.com/guides/greek-public-holidays-and-what-closes/" - About the source: field-checked guides to Crete by two Heraklion-based locals. Prices are hedged ranges in EUR; small businesses are kept anonymous; editorial is never paid for and advertising is clearly labelled. Method: https://honestcrete.com/how-we-check/ --- Greek holidays are simpler than visitors fear and trip them up in a way nobody warns about. The famous days — Easter, the 15th of August — are genuinely disruptive and genuinely worth being here for. But the day that actually ruins an itinerary is an ordinary Tuesday in October, when a site you arrived at half past five closed at six with last admission at twenty to. Checked against the Greek Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Culture's published opening decisions in September 2026. **The honest facts** - **Nine statutory holidays:** 1 Jan, 6 Jan, 25 Mar, Easter Monday, 1 May, 15 Aug, 28 Oct, 25 and 26 Dec. - **Not on that list, but observed everywhere:** **Clean Monday** and **Whit Monday**. - **Sites and museums close on five occasions only:** 1 Jan, 25 Mar, **Easter Sunday**, 1 May, 25–26 Dec. **Good Friday 12:00–17:00**, **Holy Saturday 08:30–15:30**. - **Epiphany and Clean Monday: sites are open**, on normal winter hours. - **Autumn step-down:** a 20:00 site closes 19:30 (1–15 Sep), 19:00 (16–30 Sep), 18:30 (1–15 Oct), 18:00 (16–31 Oct). **Last admission 20 minutes before.** - **Sunday trading** is restricted by default; regions may add Sundays of their own. ## The moveable dates Orthodox Easter drifts, and it drags four other days with it. **2026** — Clean Monday **23 February**; Good Friday **10 April**, Holy Saturday **11 April**, Easter Sunday **12 April**, Easter Monday **13 April**; Whit Monday **1 June**. **2027** — Clean Monday **15 March**; Good Friday **30 April**, Holy Saturday **1 May**, Easter Sunday **2 May**, Easter Monday **3 May**; Whit Monday **21 June**. The 2027 arrangement is worth a note now: Holy Saturday lands on Labour Day, so the biggest weekend in the Greek calendar and a statutory holiday arrive together. Flights, ferries and rooms for that week will behave accordingly. The fixed days — 6 January, 25 March, 15 August, 28 October — sit where they always do. If Easter is the reason you are coming, the [Easter guide](https://honestcrete.com/guides/easter-in-crete-honest-guide/) covers what it is actually like on this island. ## Which of them closes anything Less than people expect, and the exceptions are precise. State archaeological sites and museums — Knossos, Phaistos, the Chania and Heraklion museums, all of them — close on 1 January, 25 March, Easter Sunday, 1 May, and 25 and 26 December. That is the entire list. Good Friday opens midday to five, Holy Saturday half past eight to half past three. And two days that visitors routinely write off are ordinary opening days: **Epiphany on 6 January and Clean Monday** are both normal winter hours at the sites, whatever the town outside is doing. Banks and public offices follow the statutory nine and shut on Clean Monday and Whit Monday too. Supermarkets and most shops close on the big ones. Tavernas in resort areas mostly do not, because the holiday is precisely when their trade is. On 15 August, the country's largest holiday, everything that is open is full and everything that moves is booked — that is a day to have a plan, not to improvise. ## The trap that is not a holiday at all The step-down is the one that costs people an afternoon. From April to October, sites run summer hours, but "summer hours" contracts in fortnightly steps as the light goes: a site closing at eight in July closes at half past seven in early September, at seven in late September, at half past six in the first half of October and at six from the sixteenth. Last admission is twenty minutes before the gate shuts, so the effective cut-off on 20 October is 17:40 for a site that a July guidebook says closes at eight. Nobody flags this. It is published, in a ministerial decision, in a table, and it is the single most useful piece of planning information in this guide. If you are visiting in September or October, check the current period's hours the morning you go — and treat "we'll do Knossos after lunch" as a plan that needs an actual time attached to it. The [uncrowded approach to Knossos](https://honestcrete.com/guides/knossos-without-the-crowds/) argues for the morning anyway. ## Sundays, and why the resort feels different Greek Sunday trading is restricted by default: nationally permitted on the first Sunday of each sales period, the two Sundays before Christmas, and Palm Sunday, for shops up to 250 square metres, between eleven and eight. Chains, shop-in-shop units, outlets and shopping centres are excluded outright. Then there is the mechanism that makes a resort town look nothing like that: regional authorities may designate additional Sundays for their own areas, reviewed annually. Which Sundays currently apply in Crete is a regional decision rather than a national one, so the honest answer is that the tourist strip will mostly be open and the inland town mostly will not, and neither is breaking any rule. **The honest downside** Two gaps, both real. Nothing published tells you what holidays do to ferry and bus timetables — that is an operator-by-operator question and the only honest advice is to check yours rather than assume. And the Cretan anniversaries are genuinely ambiguous: the Battle of Crete around 20 May and the 1913 union are marked officially by the Region, with events and parades that will absolutely change the shape of a town's day, but no available source confirms either as a declared holiday that closes anything. Treat them as reasons a square is full of people in uniform, not as days off. **Worth checking before you book if:** you are travelling around Easter, mid-August, or any time from September onwards. **Skip it if:** you are here in July and never planned to do anything after five. *Disclosure:* The dates and rules above were checked against the official sources named — the Greek Ministry of Labour's working-time page and the Ministry of Culture's published summer and winter opening decisions — for the date shown at the top of this guide. Orthodox Easter dates are calculated rather than quoted from an ecclesiastical calendar. It is a check of published sources, not a site visit. Nobody pays to be featured in a guide — no business, no sponsor, no paid mention, ever. Adverts, where they appear, are labelled as adverts. ## Quick answers **What are the Greek public holidays?** Nine are mandatory under Greek labour law: 1 January, 6 January, 25 March, Easter Monday, 1 May, 15 August, 28 October, 25 December and 26 December. Up to five more can be declared each year by ministerial decision. Clean Monday and Whit Monday are not on the statutory list, though both are widely observed and close the public sector. **Is Knossos open on public holidays?** Usually. State archaeological sites and museums close on exactly five occasions: 1 January, 25 March, Easter Sunday, 1 May, and 25 and 26 December. Good Friday and Holy Saturday run reduced hours. Epiphany and Clean Monday, contrary to widespread belief, are ordinary opening days. **When is Orthodox Easter in 2027?** Easter Sunday falls on 2 May 2027, with Good Friday on 30 April and Easter Monday on 3 May. That puts Holy Saturday on 1 May, so Labour Day and the Easter weekend collide — worth planning around if you are travelling that spring. **Are shops open on Sundays in Greece?** Only in defined cases. National rules permit Sunday trading on the first Sunday of each sales period, the two Sundays before Christmas and Palm Sunday, for shops up to 250 square metres, between 11:00 and 20:00. Chains, shopping centres and outlets are excluded. Regional authorities may designate further Sundays for their own areas, which is why resort towns often feel different. **Do archaeological sites close early in autumn?** They step down fortnightly. A site closing at 20:00 in high summer closes at 19:30 in the first half of September, 19:00 in the second, 18:30 in early October and 18:00 from mid-October. Last admission is twenty minutes before closing, which is where late-afternoon plans come apart. **Does Crete have its own holidays?** It has its own commemorations, which is not the same thing. The Battle of Crete is marked across Heraklion, Rethymno and Chania around 20 May, and the 1913 union of Crete with Greece is an official regional anniversary. Both bring events and parades; neither is confirmed as a declared holiday that closes offices.