When is Easter 2025 in the UK? Dates, Holidays & Schools

If you’ve found yourself quietly checking the calendar and realising Easter is creeping up faster than expected, you’re not alone. Easter 2025 lands on 20 April, making it one of the later dates on the calendar in recent years.

Easter Sunday 2025: 20 April · Good Friday 2025: 18 April · Easter Monday 2025: 21 April (bank holiday) · UK Easter school break example (NI): 17–25 April · Easter calculation basis: First Sunday after first full moon post-vernal equinox

What are the Easter dates in 2025?

Easter Sunday 2025 falls on Sunday, 20 April. This is the anchor date around which the entire long weekend is structured, from the bank holidays that bracket it to the school holiday periods that families plan around. The date is fixed according to a lunar calculation system established at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, not the astronomical full moon you might see reported in space calendars (Office Simplify).

Easter Sunday

The central date of the Easter weekend, Easter Sunday 2025 is 20 April. This places it notably later in April than Easter 2024, which fell on 31 March, giving the 2025 observance a distinctly different feel for anyone used to early-spring celebrations. According to the ecclesiastical calculation, the first full moon after the vernal equinox (21 March) falls in mid-April 2025, pushing Easter toward the tail end of the month.

Related observances

Good Friday on 18 April and Easter Monday on 21 April both qualify as bank holidays in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (Factorial HR). This creates a four-day weekend for most of the UK — something many workers and families look forward to months in advance. Scotland also observes Good Friday as a bank holiday but does not recognise Easter Monday in the same way.

What dates are Good Friday and Easter Monday in 2025?

Good Friday 2025 lands on 18 April, and Easter Monday follows on 21 April — giving UK workers two consecutive days off work. Both dates are statutory bank holidays in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, meaning most businesses close and employees are entitled to the day off (Factorial HR).

Here’s how the dates and regional policies break down for Easter 2025.

Bank holiday status

Good Friday (18 April) is a bank holiday across all four UK nations. Easter Monday (21 April) is also a bank holiday in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but notably absent from Scotland’s bank holiday calendar. This means Scottish workers typically return to their desks the day after Easter Sunday while their counterparts elsewhere in the UK enjoy an extended break. No substitute day is provided when Easter Monday falls on a weekend.

Impacts on UK regions

The asymmetry between Scotland and the rest of the UK on Easter Monday creates real planning differences. Employers in England, Wales, and NI must give Easter Monday off, while Scottish employers are not legally required to do so — though many choose to follow the broader UK convention. For anyone travelling across borders over the Easter weekend, this is worth confirming with your employer in advance.

The pattern: while Good Friday is universal across the UK, Easter Monday creates a clear geographic split that affects whether workers get a four-day or three-day weekend.

Why is Easter 2025 so late?

Easter 2025 is late because the ecclesiastical full moon — the calculated “Paschal Full Moon” used in the timing system — falls on 17 April in 2025. This is the earliest full moon after the vernal equinox (21 March) that qualifies under the ecclesiastical calculation, and Easter is the first Sunday after that date. The resulting gap between equinox and Easter is wider than average, pushing the holiday toward the end of April.

Lunar calendar factors

The ecclesiastical full moon is a fiction of the Julian calendar reform of 325 AD, not a direct astronomical observation. It was designed to be predictable and consistent, but because it doesn’t track the actual lunar cycle precisely, it sometimes falls several days after the real full moon. In 2025, the ecclesiastical and astronomical full moons are relatively close, but the timing still results in a late Easter by historical standards.

Comparison to prior years

To understand why Easter 2025 feels late, compare it to recent years: Easter 2024 fell on 31 March (one of the earliest possible dates), while Easter 2025 lands on 20 April. Easter 2026 is early again, with Good Friday on 3 April. This oscillation between early and late Easters reflects the inherent mismatch between the lunar calendar and the solar year that the Council of Nicaea codified in 325 AD.

The implication: late Easter years like 2025 compress school holidays and travel demand into a narrower window, making early booking essential for families.

What are the UK school holidays for Easter 2025?

UK school Easter holidays typically run for two weeks, straddling the Easter weekend itself. In Northern Ireland, the official break runs from 17 April to 25 April 2025, confirmed by the Department of Education Northern Ireland (Department of Education Northern Ireland). Across the rest of the UK, school holiday dates are set by individual local authorities, meaning exact start and end dates can vary — particularly in England, where no single national timetable applies.

Regional variations

Northern Ireland publishes its school holiday calendar centrally, making it the most straightforward to reference. In England, Scotland, and Wales, local councils and school governing bodies set their own dates within guidelines, so parents should check with their specific school or council. Broadly, UK school Easter holidays in 2025 run from around 7 April to 21 April in many areas, though this is a general pattern rather than a universal rule.

Northern Ireland example

Northern Ireland’s Easter 2025 school holiday period from 17 April to 25 April is unusual in that it extends beyond Easter Monday, giving families additional time after the bank holiday. The Department of Education Northern Ireland sets these dates (Department of Education Northern Ireland), and they represent one of the longer Easter breaks in the UK for 2025.

The catch: without a national school calendar in England, families face genuine uncertainty about exact holiday dates, making advance planning harder for those with schools in different local authorities.

Why does the date of Easter move around?

Easter’s date shifts because it is calculated relative to the lunar cycle rather than a fixed calendar date. The rule — Easter is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon after the vernal equinox — was formalised at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to ensure Easter always fell during spring, independent of the solar calendar year.

Historical calculation

The system developed at Nicaea used the Julian calendar as its base, but by the 16th century the Julian calendar had drifted enough that Pope Gregory XIII reformed it, creating the Gregorian calendar still used today. Western churches adopted the Gregorian system, while some Eastern churches continue using the Julian calendar, explaining why Orthodox Easter often falls on a different date. The Western calculation uses a set of tables based on the lunar month, not actual moon observations, which is why it occasionally diverges from what astronomers report.

Western vs Eastern differences

Because Orthodox churches calculate Easter using the Julian calendar (which is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian), Orthodox Easter sometimes coincides with Western Easter, sometimes falls one week later, and occasionally — as in 2025 — falls five weeks apart. For those with family or cultural ties across Christian traditions, this means Eastern Easter 2025 will be significantly later than the Western date, creating two distinct celebration periods within the same calendar year.

Timeline

• 18 April 2025: Good Friday bank holiday — observed across all UK nations (Good Tuesday)
• 20 April 2025: Easter Sunday — the central date of the Christian observance
• 21 April 2025: Easter Monday bank holiday — observed in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland only

The implication: Easter 2025 offers a compressed but predictable four-day window from Good Friday to Easter Monday, with the long weekend applying unevenly across UK regions.

Clarity on Easter 2025

The catch: most of the UK’s Easter uncertainty lives in school calendars, not bank holidays — the holidays themselves are fixed, but timing affects families differently depending on where they live.

What people say

In 2025, the UK has two bank holidays during Easter: Friday, April 18th (Good Friday) and Monday, April 21st (Easter Monday).

— Factorial HR (HR and payroll information provider)

Easter holidays: two weeks off, usually coinciding with Easter celebrations.

— All Trippers (Travel and education information provider)

May half-term: a one-week break at the end of May before the final stretch.

— All Trippers (Travel and education information provider)

For UK workers planning time off, Easter 2025 presents a genuine four-day weekend — but only in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, the break ends on Easter Sunday, which means fewer consecutive days off unless your employer offers Easter Monday voluntarily. The timing of Easter late in April also means families should factor in school holiday overlaps, particularly in regions where breaks begin before Good Friday.

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Good Friday 18 April and Easter Monday 21 April form the core Easter bank holiday dates in the UK, while school breaks continue to vary across different regions.

Frequently asked questions

For most UK workers, Easter 2025 means two guaranteed days off — but whether you get a four-day weekend depends on which side of the Scottish border you work.