French school holidays 2026-2027: a host's calendar

The 2026-2027 French school calendar has been known since October 2025: the All Saints holidays (17 October to 2 November 2026) and Christmas holidays (19 December 2026 to 4 January 2027) are the same across mainland France, while the winter and spring 2027 holidays are staggered between zones A, B and C. For a host, these dates set the weeks when families book, and therefore the weeks when your rates and minimum stays matter most.

This article takes the official dates, adds the 2027 public holidays, calculates the weeks when two zones are on holiday at the same time, and then suggests a method for building them into your calendars. It relies on the service-public.gouv.fr page on the order of 22 October 2025, the same site's page on public holidays, and Eurostat's seasonality statistics.

Last verification of sources: 11 October 2026. Local adjustments are possible and the overseas territories have their own calendar: check against your own situation. Quotations from French official sources are our own translations.

What are the 2026-2027 school holiday dates?

The All Saints, Christmas and summer holidays are common to all zones, whereas winter and spring holidays depend on the zone of the school. According to service-public.gouv.fr (page updated on 16 July 2026), the calendar was set by an order of 22 October 2025 and published in the Journal officiel of 23 October 2025. Pupils return to school on Tuesday 1 September 2026, and on Thursday 3 September in Corsica.

In the page, Corsica follows, in the order of the columns, the same dates as zone A for winter and spring. Holidays start after classes on the day shown (a Saturday for all the periods above) and lessons resume on the morning of the day shown, a Monday. The page also states that, for pupils who have no school on Saturdays, the holidays start on Friday after lessons, which can bring families' arrivals forward by one evening.

Which académies are in which zone? According to the same page, zone A covers Besançon, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges, Lyon and Poitiers. Zone B covers Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Lille, Nancy-Metz, Nantes, Nice, Normandie, Orléans-Tours, Reims, Rennes and Strasbourg. Zone C covers Créteil, Montpellier, Paris, Toulouse and Versailles. For the dates of a specific département, service-public.gouv.fr offers a simulator by département, and the page points to a separate section for the overseas départements.

Mobile homes on a campsite in Autrans (Isère), photo Exilexi, Wikimedia Commons, licence CC BY 4.0.

How many weeks of holidays do you need to cover in 2027?

Each winter or spring holiday lasts 16 nights for one zone, but the three zones together spread over 30 nights. This is a Majordia calculation based on the dates from service-public.gouv.fr: from Saturday 6 February to Monday 8 March 2027 for winter, and from Saturday 3 April to Monday 3 May 2027 for spring, at least one zone is always on holiday.

The practical reading: the weekend of 20 to 22 February 2027 and the one of 17 to 19 April 2027 are the only two moments when all three zones are on holiday at the same time. A mountain or seaside rental with a one-week minimum stay therefore has four possible Saturday arrivals for a full week in winter (6, 13, 20 and 27 February) and four in spring (3, 10, 17 and 24 April), depending on where your guests come from: a stay starting later would end after the last zone's classes have resumed. Zone C departures come first, zone B's last.

Which public holidays and bridges should you add?

Several 2027 public holidays create long weekends outside school holidays, notably around 6 May (Ascension). According to service-public.gouv.fr (page verified on 1 January 2026), the dates of the statutory holidays in mainland France for the period in question are as follows.

Two points stand out. Easter Monday (29 March 2027) falls before the start of the first zone's spring holidays on 3 April: it is a separate three-day weekend, unrelated to the zones. And Ascension, on Thursday 6 May 2027, is followed by a Friday 7 May on which, according to the service-public.gouv.fr page on the school calendar, pupils in zones A, B and C will have no school: the bridge therefore runs from Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 May, four consecutive days without school. Statutory holidays that fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday, such as 11 November 2027 (Thursday), may also allow people to "make a bridge": the page says that some public holidays give access to a bridge, without saying that schools are closed on Friday 12 November 2027.

Why do these dates matter for your prices?

School holidays are one of the factors that shape tourism seasonality. According to Eurostat (news item of 7 July 2026), seasonality is driven by environmental factors (climate, geography) and by social and cultural influences, including school holidays. In 2025, 31.1% of all overnight stays in tourist accommodation across the European Union took place in the two busiest months (July and August in every country), and August had 3.6 times more overnight stays than January, the slowest month.

For holiday rentals in particular, Eurostat's article on seasonality (data extracted in May 2026) shows that the third quarter accounted for 43% of 2025 nights in "holiday and other short-stay accommodation" in the European Union, against 36% for hotels and 63% for campsites. These figures cover the European Union as a whole, not France alone. The gap between August and January may therefore differ in your region: a ski resort and a seaside house do not have the same curve. For French occupancy figures, our analysis of tourist attendance in France in 2026 provides the context.

As for online booking platforms, Eurostat counted 951.6 million nights in the European Union in 2025 for short-term rentals booked through Airbnb, Booking or Expedia, 11.4% more than in 2024. In the third quarter of 2025, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur was the most visited French region, with 16.9 million nights. These data concern platforms and cannot be added to hotel or campsite statistics.

Rue Steinkerque, Paris 18th arrondissement, photo Chabe01, Wikimedia Commons, licence CC BY-SA 4.0; undated illustration image.

How do you prepare your rates and minimum stays?

The safest method is to enter the official dates in your calendar before opening bookings, then check your rules week by week. Here is a five-step approach.

1. Identify your zone, and your guests' zones. The zone of your property does not matter: what counts is the zones your travellers come from. A chalet in zone A can host families from zone C in February and from zone B in March.
2. Mark the 30-night windows (6 February to 8 March, 3 April to 3 May) rather than three separate periods.
3. Set the arrival day. Since the holidays start on a Saturday, Saturday to Saturday is the most common organisation for week-long stays; it leaves a single changeover day for linen and cleaning.
4. Tell long weekends apart (Easter, Ascension, Whitsun) from holiday weeks: they call for short stays of three or four nights rather than a seven-night minimum.
5. Re-read your last-minute rule. Do not cut a last-minute price over a period that involves two zones at once: our article on dynamic pricing for a small portfolio details the rules by period and the trap of a discount applied in the middle of the holidays.

The prices and minimum stays you choose remain a commercial decision: the steps above are a working method, not a rule.

What should you do with this calendar in your tools?

A holiday calendar only has an effect if it is entered in all your channels at once. If you sell on several platforms, a minimum stay entered on only one leaves the others open to short stays: read our guide to calendar synchronisation to avoid double bookings so that duration rules follow your bookings. For families, who make up most of the demand during the holidays, our guide to family holiday rentals covers welcoming children.

On the welcome side, the Majordia digital welcome book gives each property a welcome book accessible by QR code, with sections for Wi-Fi, door code, contacts and emergency numbers, automatically translated into six languages: it is useful when arrivals are concentrated on a single Saturday and you cannot welcome everyone in person. The plans are detailed on the Pricing page.

Key takeaways

FAQ

What are the dates of the All Saints holidays 2026?

They run from Saturday 17 October 2026 to Monday 2 November 2026 for the three zones of mainland France, according to service-public.gouv.fr. The holidays start after classes on 17 October, and lessons resume on the morning of 2 November.

When do the February 2027 holidays start?

It depends on the zone: 6 February 2027 for zone C (Paris, Créteil, Versailles, Montpellier, Toulouse), 13 February for zone A and 20 February for zone B. They end on 22 February, 1 March and 8 March 2027 respectively.

When do the 2027 summer holidays start?

The summer holidays start on Saturday 3 July 2027 for all zones, according to service-public.gouv.fr. The page consulted does not give the September 2027 return date: it is set by a separate order.

Is there a bridge in May 2027?

Yes: Ascension falls on Thursday 6 May 2027, and pupils in zones A, B and C have no school on Friday 7 May 2027. The bridge therefore runs from Thursday to Sunday, four days.

Are school holidays the same in the overseas territories and in Corsica?

No. The overseas territories have their own calendar, to which service-public.gouv.fr points on a dedicated page, and Corsica has its own return date (3 September 2026). For winter and spring 2027, the page gives Corsica, in the order of its columns, the same dates as zone A.

Should you adapt prices for each zone?

No, not zone by zone: your property is in a single region, but its guests come from several zones. Prices should follow the holiday windows (30 nights in winter and spring 2027), not the zone boundaries.

From calendar to bookings

The simplest approach is to copy the table in this article into your calendar before opening winter 2027 bookings, then review each holiday week against your minimum-stay rule. Majordia does not replace consulting the official dates: for the dates of your département, use the service-public.gouv.fr simulator, which remains the reference.

Image credits. Cover: photo "Open monthly planner on wooden desk" by Eric Rothermel, Unsplash, Unsplash licence. Illustrations: Exilexi (CC BY 4.0) and Chabe01 (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons; image converted to WebP and resized.