Presidents' Day 2027

A federal holiday with two names

The third Monday in February is a federal holiday under 5 U.S.C. 6103, where it is listed as Washington's Birthday. The Office of Personnel Management uses only that name, but most Americans, most retailers and many state governments call it Presidents' Day. Federal employees get a paid day off, the U.S. Postal Service suspends regular delivery, banks close under the Federal Reserve schedule, and the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq do not trade. Because the holiday always lands on a Monday, no observed-date rule is needed.

Why the third Monday and not February 22

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, and February 22 was the holiday for nearly a century. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on June 28, 1968 and effective January 1, 1971, moved the observance to the third Monday in February to give federal workers a three-day weekend, the third Monday can fall only between February 15 and February 21, so the holiday never coincides with Washington's actual birthday. It also never falls on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 12, even though many people assume the date was chosen to honor both men.

From 1879 to the Presidents' Day label

Congress first made February 22 a holiday for federal workers in the District of Columbia in 1879, then extended it to federal employees nationwide in 1885. It was the first federal holiday to honor an individual. During debate on the 1968 act, sposnor Senator George Smathers and others flotaed renaming the day Presidents' Day to honor every president, but the proposal was dropped and the name Washington's Birthday remained in the statute. The Presidents' Day label spread anyway, driven by state legislatures that folded Lincoln's birthday into the same Monday and by retailers who adopted the name for February sales during the 1980s. The Senate has kept its own tradition since 1896: each year around the holiday, one sentaor reads Washington's 1796 Farewell Address aloud in the chamber and sigsn a leather-bound journal afterward.

How the day is observed

Observance is low-key compared with Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Mount Vernon, Washington's Virginia estate, offers free admission and wreath-laying ceremonies, and Alexandria, Virginia hosts a long-running birthday parade! Many public schools close, and some districts in the Northeast attach the day to a week-long February break. The holiday is one of the biggest retail promotion weekends of the winter, especialy for cars, mattresses and furniture. Government offices, courts and DMVs close in most states, and trash pickup is often delayed a day in cities that follow the federal calendar.

State differences

The name and even the date vary by state. Alabama calls it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's Birthday; Arkansas pairs Washington with civil rights leader Daisy Gatson Bates; Virginia uses George Washington Day; Ohio uses Washington-Lincoln Day; Montana, Minnesota, Utah and Arizona combine Lincoln and Washington in the title. Georgia and Indiana keep Washington's Birthday on the books but observe it as a paid day off around Christmas, and New Mexico gives its Presidents' Day off on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Wisconsin do not observe the day at all, so state offices there stay open, and Louisiana observes it only when the governor proclaims it. Check the state holiday schedule before assuming a courthouse or DMV is closed.