Court deadlines over Christmas and the New Year
The fortnight from 20 December to 7 January is where the five lists on this site disagree most, and where the shortcuts that work for the rest of the year stop working. Four jurisdictions take 26 December out of a computation and one does not. Three grant no substitute weekday at all. One adds 2 January. And the Federal Courts remove eighteen consecutive days that are not holidays.
Every day counted by somebody, 2026 into 2027
Days nothing happens on are left out: everything between these rows is an ordinary day in every jurisdiction here, and the clock runs through it. The names are the ones each instrument gives the day, which is why the same date can be Boxing Day in one column and a substitute for Christmas in another.
An ordinary day in the Federal Courts.
An ordinary day in Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta.
An ordinary day in the Federal Courts, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
The eighteen days that are not holidays
Rule 6(3) of the Federal Courts Rules takes every day of the seasonal recess out of the computation of time for filing, amending, transmitting or serving a document, and rule 2 defines that recess as 21 December to 7 January. Eighteen consecutive days, none of which is a holiday and none of which any list of individual days can show you.
Read the words rather than the summary. Rule 6(3) reaches the time for filing, amending, transmitting and serving. It says nothing about a period fixed by a statute, and a limitation period is fixed by a statute. Nothing on this page should be read as saying that a limitation date moves because of the recess.
26 December, and what a closed registry is not
Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta each name 26 December in the instrument that governs their computation of time. The Federal Courts Rules do not, and neither does the definition at s. 35(1) of the Interpretation Act that those Rules adopt. The federal registries do close: they simply close on a day that is not a holiday for the purpose of counting. That is the distinction the whole of this section of the site is built on, and the year-end is where it costs the most.
Where a substitute day is granted, and where it is not
The Federal Courts Rules move a weekend Christmas to the following Monday and Tuesday, and a Friday Christmas to the following Monday. Ontario grants substitute days on the same pattern. The Interpretation Acts of British Columbia and Alberta grant none at all, and Quebec’s s. 61(23) grants exactly one, at (f), for 1 July. Alberta is its own case: its Act names 26 December, or the 27th where the 26th falls on a Sunday or a Monday, which is a substitution rule that looks like none of the others.
The practical consequence is the error that runs the other way. Assuming every weekend holiday produces a closed weekday adds a day the rule does not give you, and a period of notice counted that way is short.
The year the count belongs to
New Year’s Day, and any substitute day that follows it, sits in the year after the December a deadline is usually being counted from. That is why the table above spans two years, and why a table built from one year’s holidays will quietly omit the end of the period you are actually counting.
The full lists, year by year: 202620272028, and every jurisdiction from the index.
Questions this page answers
- Do court deadlines run over the Christmas break?
- In most Canadian courts, yes: the individual days are holidays and come out of the count, but the days between them are ordinary and the clock keeps running. The Federal Courts are the exception. Rule 6(3) of the Federal Courts Rules takes every day of the seasonal recess out of the computation of time for filing, amending, transmitting or serving a document, and rule 2 defines that recess as 21 December to 7 January.
- Does the Federal Courts' seasonal recess extend a limitation period?
- Do not assume it does. Rule 6(3) reaches the time for filing, amending, transmitting and serving a document. It says nothing about a period fixed by a statute, and a limitation period is fixed by a statute. The recess is not a general suspension of time.
- Is 26 December a court holiday across Canada?
- No, and this is the sharpest divergence between the lists on this site. Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta each name 26 December in their governing instrument. The Federal Courts Rules and the Interpretation Act definition those Rules adopt do not name it, so it is not a day that comes out of a federal computation of time even though the registries are shut.
- Does every court holiday over the year-end move when it falls on a weekend?
- No. The Federal Courts Rules and Ontario's Rules of Civil Procedure grant substitute days. The Interpretation Acts of British Columbia and Alberta grant none at all, and Quebec's grants exactly one, for 1 July. Assuming a Saturday Christmas produces a closed Monday adds a day the rule does not give you in three of the five jurisdictions here.
- Is 2 January a court holiday?
- In Quebec, yes: art. 82 of the Code of Civil Procedure makes both 26 December and 2 January holidays for civil procedure. Nowhere else on this site. It is the clearest single case of a day that a national holiday calendar has no reason to contain and that changes a date if you are counting in Quebec.
Where this list comes from
Every instrument below was opened and the provision quoted from it read on 12 August 2026. Anything amended since that date is not reflected here, and the dates are generated from a table in this site's source code rather than read live from the statute.
- Federal Courts Rules, SOR/98-106, rule 2Defines holiday as a Saturday, a holiday under s. 35(1) of the Interpretation Act, the Monday after a weekend New Year's Day, Canada Day or Remembrance Day, the Monday and Tuesday after a weekend Christmas, and the Monday after a Friday Christmas. Also defines the seasonal recess as 21 December to 7 January.
- Federal Courts Rules, SOR/98-106, rule 6Computation of time. Rule 6(2) takes holidays out of a period of less than seven days; rule 6(3) takes every day of the seasonal recess out of the time for filing, amending, transmitting or serving a document.
- Interpretation Act, RSC 1985, c I-21, s. 35(1)The list rule 2 adopts: Sunday, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, the Sovereign's birthday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Remembrance Day, and any day proclaimed for general prayer, mourning, rejoicing or thanksgiving.
- Courts Administration Service, registry holidaysThe days the registries are shut, which is a different list and is why 26 December is absent above. It closes on 26 December and on the Civic Holiday in most provinces; rule 2 names neither.
- Rules of Civil Procedure, RRO 1990, Reg 194, r. 1.03(1)Defines holiday as any Saturday or Sunday, New Year's Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, the Civic Holiday, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and any special holiday proclaimed by the Governor General or the Lieutenant Governor, with the Monday substitution for a weekend New Year's Day, Canada Day or Remembrance Day and the Monday and Tuesday after a weekend Christmas.
- Rules of Civil Procedure, RRO 1990, Reg 194, r. 3.01Computation of time. Holidays are not counted where a period of seven days or less is prescribed, and a period ending on a holiday runs to the next day that is not one.
- Your guide to the Employment Standards Act: public holidays (Ontario)The nine employment-standards holidays, and the statement that an employer giving a holiday on Easter Monday, the first Monday in August or Remembrance Day is not required by the Act to do it. This is the list r. 1.03(1) is not.
- Code of Civil Procedure, CQLR c C-25.01, art. 82The courts do not sit on Saturdays or on holidays within the meaning of s. 61 of the Interpretation Act, nor on 26 December or 2 January, which that article makes holidays for civil procedure.
- Interpretation Act, CQLR c I-16, s. 61(23)The holidays art. 82 adopts: Sundays, 1 January, Good Friday, Easter Monday, 24 June, 1 July or 2 July when 1 July is a Sunday, Labour Day, the second Monday of October, 25 December, the day proclaimed for the Sovereign's birthday, and any other proclaimed public holiday or day of thanksgiving. Paragraph (f) is the only substitution in the list.
- Interpretation Act, RSBC 1996, c 238, s. 29The definition of holiday, in the general list of expressions defined. Note that Saturday is not in it, and that no paragraph grants a substitute day.
- Supreme Court Civil Rules, BC Reg 168/2009Cited for what it does not say. The Rules use the word holiday but Rule 1-1 defines no list of their own, so s. 29 governs. They do separately define a business day as a day the registries are open, which is a different question again.
- Interpretation Act, RSA 2000, c I-8, s. 28(1)(x)The definition of holiday. Sub-paragraph (iv) is the one that catches people out: 26 December, or when that date falls on a Sunday or a Monday, then 27 December. The day moves; it is not doubled.
- Interpretation Act, RSA 2000, c I-8, s. 22(1)Computation of time: where the time limited by an enactment for doing a thing expires or falls on a holiday, the thing may be done on the next day that is not one.
- Alberta Rules of Court, Alta Reg 124/2010Cited for what it does not say. The word holiday does not appear anywhere in the consolidated Rules, which is why the Interpretation Act definition is the operative one.
The table cannot know about a day proclaimed after it was written, a closure at your own courthouse, or an amendment to the underlying rules. Confirm any date that a limitation period or a filing deadline depends on.
This page is published for general information. It is not legal advice, it does not create a solicitor-client relationship, and no retainer arises from reading it. To the fullest extent the law allows, Yehuda Levy accepts no liability for any loss arising from reliance on it. You are responsible for verifying every date against the rules and the court in question.
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Counting through it
The deadline calculator counts calendar or business days from a triggering date with the jurisdiction’s list already taken out. It will not apply the federal seasonal recess for you: that is a rule about a period, not a list of days, and the calculator does the arithmetic rather than the rule.