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St Francis’s Day fell on a Sunday: who is entitled to the extra amount in the October payslip

Since 2026, 4 October has been a public holiday in Italy, and this year it fell on a Sunday. The legal basis for the extra amount in the payslip is not the same for everyone: it depends on how the employee is paid, on the sector and on the collective agreement applied.

On Sunday 4 October 2026 Italy celebrated the national feast of St Francis of Assisi for the first time. Law No. 151 of 8 October 2025 added it to the list of public holidays with effect from 1 January 2026. Because the holiday fell on a Sunday, many employees expect an extra amount in their October payslip. The position is more nuanced than is often reported. Private-sector employees paid by the hour are entitled to it by law. For white-collar staff and other employees paid a fixed monthly salary, the basis must be found in a 1960 decree for industry and in the collective agreement in other sectors. For public employees whose employment is governed by collective agreements, no statutory provision grants it.

What Law No. 151 of 2025 changed

The Law (Official Gazette No. 236 of 10 October 2025) adds 4 October to the list of public holidays in Article 2 of Law No. 260 of 27 May 1949. Until 2025, 4 October was only a civil commemoration (solennità civile) under Law No. 132 of 4 March 1958: a day of celebration, not a public holiday for employment purposes.

The 2025 Law does not, however, amend Article 5 of Law No. 260, which governs pay for public holidays, and contains no provision on pay. To determine what is due in the October payslip, the existing rules must therefore be applied, and they differ according to how the employee is paid.

Employees paid by the hour

For employees paid according to the hours they work, protection is statutory. Article 5(1) of Law No. 260 of 1949 guarantees, on the civil holidays, the normal actual overall daily pay (retribuzione globale di fatto), including all ancillary elements, calculated on the basis of one sixth of the contractual weekly working hours. For employees of private employers, Article 3 of Law No. 90 of 31 March 1954 extends this treatment to all the holidays listed in Article 2 of Law No. 260, and therefore now also to 4 October. Point (e) of Article 2 of Law No. 90 preserves it even when the holiday falls on a Sunday.

With a 40-hour working week, an hourly-paid employee is therefore entitled to 6 hours and 40 minutes’ pay for 4 October, even if they would not have worked that Sunday anyway: at an actual overall hourly rate of €12, that is €80 gross. This pay is not due during periods in which work has been suspended for more than two weeks (Article 3 of Law No. 90 of 1954). In all other cases it is due in full, including to employees who were absent on account of sickness, injury, maternity leave, annual leave, paid time off (permessi) or other justified reasons, or because of reduced working hours or a suspension of work beyond their control (Article 2 of the same Law). How it interacts with benefits borne by INPS (the National Social Security Institute) should be checked case by case.

White-collar staff and employees paid a fixed monthly salary

For employees paid a fixed monthly salary (monthly-paid employees), the holiday is already included in their pay. Where the holiday falls on a Sunday, Article 5(3) of Law No. 260 of 1949 provides for an extra amount equal to one day’s pay. However, that provision refers only to the civil holidays listed in Article 5 itself: 25 April, 1 May and 2 June, as well as 4 November, which has not been a public holiday since 1977 and is now celebrated on the first Sunday in November (Law No. 54 of 5 March 1977). This is the reading adopted by the Court of Cassation, as noted by the Ministry of Labour in its reply of 20 February 2006, ref. No. 1664, to a formal request for clarification (interpello). As 4 October is not one of those holidays, any entitlement of monthly-paid employees can derive only from other sources.

Industry. For industrial undertakings, Presidential Decree No. 1029 of 14 July 1960 applies: it extended the interconfederal agreement of 3 December 1954 to all employees in the sector. Under that agreement, white-collar staff and other employees paid on a fixed basis receive one day’s pay, equal to 1/26 of their fixed monthly salary, when one of the national holidays or one of the other holidays listed in Article 2 of Law No. 260 of 1949 falls on a Sunday. As 4 October has been added to that very list, the most straightforward reading is that the cross-reference is to the list as amended from time to time and that the extra amount is also due for 4 October 2026. It is not the only possible reading: it can be argued that the decree, which gives effect to a 1954 agreement, froze the list as it stood at that time. To date there has been no clarification from the Ministry; some sector trade unions and some local employers’ associations advise payment at 1/26. The agreement also preserves (Article 4) the treatment that sector agreements had already established for holidays falling on a Sunday, such as replacing the holiday with another day or adding the day to annual leave: the collective agreement applied by the employer must therefore be checked as well.

Trade, services and other sectors. The collective agreement applied by the employer is decisive. Many agreements contain their own list of holidays, drawn up before the 2025 Law. This is the case with the national collective agreement for the tertiary, distribution and services sector (CCNL Terziario, Distribuzione e Servizi, Confcommercio). Article 154 grants one day’s pay for holidays falling on a Sunday, but its list does not mention 4 October. To date, the signatory parties have issued no national agreement or clarification. The first notes from local employers’ associations and trade unions, however, indicate that the extra amount should be paid. A reading that excludes 4 October because the contractual list predates the Law is also open to challenge: in substance that list reproduces the statutory holidays, and a court could hold that it now includes the new one. Until the parties clarify the point, the prudent course is to pay the extra amount.

Domestic work. The national collective agreement for domestic work of 28 October 2025 expressly includes 4 October among the holidays (Article 16). For hourly arrangements, the holiday is paid on the basis of one sixth of the weekly working hours, whether or not work was scheduled on that day (Article 16(2)). Where the holiday falls on a Sunday, the agreement provides for a compensatory rest day on another day or, alternatively, payment of 1/26 of the monthly actual overall pay (Article 16(4)).

Public sector. For public employees whose employment is governed by collective agreements, Article 1(224) of Law No. 266 of 23 December 2005 provided that Article 5(3) of Law No. 260 of 1949 ceased to apply once the collective agreements for the 1994–1997 period were signed. The extra amount is therefore not due even for the civil holidays that fall on a Sunday. Nor is there any other statutory basis for 4 October, because the extension in Law No. 90 of 1954 covers only employees of private employers. Any provision in the collective agreement for the relevant public-sector bargaining area (comparto) should still be checked.

How much the extra amount is worth

Where the extra amount is calculated using a divisor of 26 (as in the tertiary sector agreement, Article 210), the calculation is simple: with a fixed monthly salary of €2,000 gross, the extra amount is €2,000 divided by 26, that is €76.92 gross. The divisor and the pay elements to be taken into account depend on the applicable source: for industry, the 1960 decree refers to the fixed monthly salary, while collective agreements may set different bases of calculation.

For part-time employees the entitlement is reduced pro rata (Article 7 of Legislative Decree No. 81 of 15 June 2015): for an hourly-paid employee, the calculation is based on one sixth of their contractual weekly hours; for a monthly-paid employee, the extra amount is calculated on the reduced monthly salary. For vertical part-time arrangements that do not include Sunday work, the answer depends on the collective agreement and is not uniform.

The extra amount is pay for all purposes. It forms part of employment income (Article 51 of the Consolidated Income Tax Act, Presidential Decree No. 917 of 22 December 1986) and is subject to social security contributions (Article 12 of Law No. 153 of 30 April 1969, as replaced by Article 6 of Legislative Decree No. 314 of 2 September 1997). From 1 January 2027 the tax rule is carried over unchanged to Article 53 of the new Consolidated Income Tax Act (Legislative Decree No. 117 of 19 June 2026).

Employees who worked on Sunday 4 October

An hourly-paid employee who worked on 4 October is entitled, in addition to public holiday pay, to pay for the hours worked plus the holiday-work premium set by the collective agreement (Article 5(2) of Law No. 260 of 1949, applicable through Law No. 90 of 1954). For employees on a fixed salary in industry, the 1954 agreement also grants the extra amount to those who work on Sundays and take their compensatory rest on another day of the week, unless the holiday falls on the compensatory rest day itself. These employees also receive the contractual payment for Sunday work. In all other cases the rules of the collective agreement apply: the agreement for domestic work, for example, provides for the hours worked to be paid at a 60% premium.

Where 4 October is also the day of the local patron saint, as in Bologna with St Petronius, the treatment provided by the collective agreement for two coinciding holidays must be checked. For hourly-paid employees, pay for 4 October remains due in full in any event, under point (e) of Article 2 of Law No. 90 of 1954.

If the extra amount was due and has not been paid

Employees can claim the pay shortfall from the employer, and the claim is subject to a five-year limitation period (Article 2948, point 4, of the Italian Civil Code). If an inspection reveals unpaid amounts owed to employees, the inspectors order the employer to pay (diffida accertativa, Article 12 of Legislative Decree No. 124 of 23 April 2004). The order becomes an enforceable instrument if no settlement is reached through conciliation within thirty days and no appeal is lodged with the head of the inspection office, or if the appeal is dismissed. It is therefore advisable for employers to record, employee by employee, the legal or contractual basis for the treatment applied.

In practice

• For each employee, identify the source of the entitlement: the law for hourly-paid employees in the private sector, the 1960 decree for monthly-paid employees in industry (with the caveat set out above on the cross-reference to the statutory list), the collective agreement in other sectors, and the specific agreement for domestic workers.
• Check whether the collective agreement applied lists 4 October among its holidays or whether the signatory parties have issued guidance since Law No. 151 of 2025; in the absence of any clarification, the prudent course is to pay the extra amount.
• Include the extra amount, where due, in the October payslip and, for employees who worked on 4 October, pay for the hours worked with the related premium.
• Keep on file the calculation, the attendance records for 4 October and the records of compensatory rest days.
• Prepare the November payslip in good time: Sunday 1 November 2026 is All Saints’ Day and also the first Sunday in November, when 4 November is celebrated. Several collective agreements, including the tertiary sector agreement, apply the treatment for holidays falling on a Sunday to 4 November, so two extra amounts may be due.

Frequently asked questions

I am a white-collar employee on a monthly salary: am I definitely entitled to the extra amount for 4 October?

Not directly under the law on public holidays, which grants monthly-paid employees the extra amount only for the national civil holidays (25 April, 1 May and 2 June). In industry, the entitlement derives from Presidential Decree No. 1029 of 1960, which refers to the holidays listed by law: the most straightforward reading extends it to 4 October, although there has been no official clarification. In other sectors, the collective agreement applied by the employer must be checked.

I am paid by the hour and never work on Sundays: am I entitled to anything?

Yes. For employees of private employers paid by the hour, the law guarantees public holiday pay based on one sixth of the contractual weekly hours, even when the holiday falls on a Sunday.

Is a domestic worker entitled to pay for 4 October?

Yes. The 2025 collective agreement for domestic work lists 4 October among the holidays. A domestic worker paid by the hour receives public holiday pay based on one sixth of the weekly hours, even if no work was scheduled that day. A domestic worker on a monthly salary is entitled, where the holiday falls on a Sunday, to a compensatory rest day on another day or, alternatively, to payment of 1/26 of the monthly actual overall pay.

Sources

Law No. 151 of 8 October 2025 (Official Gazette No. 236 of 10 October 2025), Articles 1 and 3.

Law No. 260 of 27 May 1949, Articles 2 and 5; Law No. 90 of 31 March 1954, Articles 2 and 3; Law No. 132 of 4 March 1958, Article 1; Law No. 54 of 5 March 1977, Article 1.

Presidential Decree No. 1029 of 14 July 1960, and interconfederal agreement of 3 December 1954, Articles 1, 2 and 4.

Ministry of Labour, reply to interpello of 20 February 2006, ref. No. 1664 (with the Court of Cassation case law cited therein).

Article 1(224) of Law No. 266 of 23 December 2005.

Article 7 of Legislative Decree No. 81 of 15 June 2015.

Article 51 of Presidential Decree No. 917 of 22 December 1986; Article 12 of Law No. 153 of 30 April 1969, as replaced by Article 6 of Legislative Decree No. 314 of 2 September 1997; Legislative Decree No. 117 of 19 June 2026, Articles 53, 376 and 377.

Article 2948, point 4, of the Italian Civil Code; Article 12 of Legislative Decree No. 124 of 23 April 2004.

National collective agreement for the tertiary, distribution and services sector (Confcommercio), Articles 154 and 210; national collective agreement for domestic work of 28 October 2025, Article 16.