When do schools close for summer in Ireland 2027?
No national summer dates
Each school sets its own summer closing and re-opening dates; check the school's calendar. The one fixed limit: post-primary tuition does not run beyond the Friday before the June bank holiday, (from the rule in the Act). Your school's calendar, which the circular requires every school to give parents at the beginning of the year, is the place to look.Summer holidays do not have a national closing or re-opening date. The circular leaves those dates to individual schools, while setting requirements that shape their calendars. These include a different minimum number of school days at primary and post-primary level, the week in which the school year is expected to begin, and the final permitted tuition day at post-primary level before the State examinations. The table on this page explains those limits rather than supplying a summer date. For the actual finish and return arrangements, consult the calendar issued by your school.
What the circular says
| Rule | What the circular says |
|---|---|
| Start and end of the school year are not standardised | It is not a requirement of this agreement that the commencement or end of the school year either at primary or post-primary level should be standardised. |
| Normal start of the school year | The expectation is that the school year will normally commence during the week in which the 1st of September falls. |
| Post-primary last tuition day before State examinations | it is recognised the commencement of State examinations will mean that post-primary schools will not be open for tuition beyond the Friday preceding the June bank holiday in any year. |
| Minimum school days, primary and special schools | Primary schools and special schools must be open for all pupils for a minimum of 182 school days. |
| Minimum school days, post-primary | Post-primary schools must be open for all students and all year groups for a minimum of 166 school days. |
| Junior infants sent home early at the start of the year | The practice of sending children in junior infants home early from school at the commencement of the school year is permissible for a period of no more than ten school days. |
| Staggered start at post-primary | Staggering, at the commencement of the school year, is limited to a minimum of two days, and all students must return for tuition on the third day of the school year without exception. |
| A day with less than a full day of tuition does not count as a full school day | Schools are reminded that any day on which a school completes less than a full school day's tuition shall not be counted as a full school day for the purposes of meeting the overall requirements of 166 days at post-primary or 182 days at primary level. |
The June bank holiday, year by year
The circular ties the last tuition day at post-primary level to the Friday before the June bank holiday. The holiday itself falls on:
- (from the rule in the Act)
- (from the rule in the Act)
The Friday before it is the latest day on which post-primary tuition runs; the circular does not print a school's actual last day, so none is shown here.
What is standardised instead
The October mid-term, the Christmas holidays, the February mid-term and the Easter holidays. They are on the school-year pages: 2026/27, 2027/28, 2028/29.
Questions parents ask
When do primary schools finish for the summer?
Each primary school sets its own summer closing date, so check the school's calendar. It must provide at least 182 days in the school year.
When do secondary schools finish?
The June bank holiday falls on Monday 7 June 2027, and post-primary tuition must finish by the preceding Friday. That limit does not establish a common summer closing date for every post-primary school.
When does the school year start?
The Department's circular gives the week containing Wednesday 1 September 2027 as the starting week. It sets no national opening date; each school sets its own return arrangements.
Official documents
- Department of Education and Youth: Circular 0018/2026 Standardisation of the school year ... 2026/27, 2027/28 and 2028/29 (PDF, February 2026) (first read on 26 October 2026; checked again on 2 November 2026, unchanged)
- Department of Education: Circular 0072/2022 Standardisation of the school year ... 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 (DOCX, 10 November 2022) (first read on 26 October 2026; checked again on 2 November 2026, unchanged)
Every date on this page was checked against these documents on . If anything here differs from the circular or the Act, the official text applies. How the dates are checked.