If you work in the Greek private sector, 15 August 2026 is not a normal Saturday. It is a mandatory public holiday that lands on a weekend, and the amount your employer owes you depends on three questions most workers never think to ask: is the business one that legally operates on Sundays and holidays, is your contract five days or six, and does working that Saturday count as your sixth day of the week?

Get one of those answers wrong on your payslip and you can be underpaid by a full day’s wage, a 75% surcharge, or a 40% sixth-day premium, sometimes all three stacked together. This guide walks through what the law actually says, using the guidance issued by KEPEA/GSEE on 6 August 2026 and republished by the Athens Chamber (EEA), so you can check your August payslip line by line.

Why 15 August 2026 is a payroll puzzle, not a day off

Under Article 60 of Law 4808/2021 and Article 203 of Presidential Decree 62/2025, 15 August is a mandatory public holiday. Employing staff and operating a business on that date is prohibited, except for workplaces that are legally allowed to operate on Sundays and mandatory holidays (hotels, restaurants, tourism, security, some retail, and others covered by specific regulations).

In 2026, that holiday falls on a Saturday. For a lot of workers, Saturday is either a regular working day (six-day schedule), a rest day (five-day schedule), or the day the business is normally closed. Each of those situations triggers a different pay rule. There is no single formula that applies to everyone.

Scenario 1: your workplace is closed on 15 August and you stay home

This is the majority case: offices, shops, and businesses that do not legally operate on Sundays and holidays shut their doors. You do not work. What lands in your bank account depends on whether you are paid by the day or the month.

Five-day schedule, daily wage: you are entitled to one additional day’s wage for 15 August, even though you did not work.

Six-day schedule, daily wage: you receive the day’s wage for 15 August as part of your normal six-daily-wage weekly total.

Monthly salary (either schedule): you receive your usual monthly pay, with no extra amount and no deduction.

If you are on a daily wage and your August payslip does not show that extra day, that is your first red flag.

Scenario 2: your workplace legally operates and you work the holiday

If you work in tourism, hospitality, food service, or any sector that is legally allowed to open on Sundays and mandatory holidays, and you are scheduled on 15 August 2026, a 75% holiday surcharge kicks in on top of your normal pay.

Daily-wage worker: you receive your usual daily wage plus a 75% surcharge, calculated on your legal hourly rate for the hours you actually worked.

Monthly-salaried worker: you receive your normal monthly salary plus a 75% surcharge, calculated on 1/25 of your legal salary for the hours you worked on the holiday.

The 75% is not optional and it is not negotiable downward. It is a statutory minimum, and it applies whether you worked two hours or a full shift.

Scenario 3: 15 August is your sixth day of the week

This is the trickiest case, and it is where underpayment complaints tend to cluster. If you are on a five-day schedule and your employer schedules you to work on Saturday 15 August, that Saturday is a sixth day on top of your normal working week.

The rules are clear: the shift cannot exceed 8 hours, and your daily wage for that day is increased by a further 40% on top of the holiday surcharges already owed. So you are potentially looking at your daily wage, plus the 75% holiday surcharge for the hours worked, plus a 40% sixth-day premium layered on top.

Before you agree to work that Saturday, ask your employer in writing which schedule (five-day or six-day) they have you registered under. If your contract says five days and they treat 15 August as if you were a six-day worker (to avoid paying the 40% premium), the payslip maths will be wrong.

Scenario 4: your normally-closed workplace opens for the day

Sometimes a business that does not usually operate on Sundays or holidays decides to open exceptionally on 15 August (with the required legal formalities). If that happens where you work:

• Full-time salaried employees receive a 1/25 surcharge for the day.
• Daily-wage workers receive one additional day’s wage.
• Everyone who works the day gets the 75% holiday surcharge on top, calculated on their hourly rate.

This scenario is easy to under-pay because employers who are not routinely open on holidays sometimes forget the surcharge rules apply to them too.

The repo trap: your rest day cannot be swapped for the holiday

This is one of the most common tricks workers should know about: it is not legal to offset an owed rest day (repo) with a mandatory public holiday. If your employer tells you 15 August will count as your repo for a Sunday you worked earlier in the month, they are wrong. The holiday and the rest day are two separate entitlements. You are owed both.

If someone in payroll suggests otherwise, ask them to point to the specific provision. There isn’t one.

Overtime and leave: two edge cases worth knowing

If you go over 40 hours on the holiday: the overwork and legal overtime surcharge is owed on top of the holiday surcharge. They stack; one does not absorb the other.

If you are on annual leave that covers 15 August: if you are paid by daily wage, you are still entitled to the 15 August day’s wage, and that day does not count as one of your leave working days. If you are monthly-salaried, you do not receive an additional daily wage, but the holiday also does not count as a leave working day, which means you get that leave day back.

Either way, no one should be losing a leave day because a public holiday happened to fall inside their vacation window.

What to do before payday

A few practical steps to protect yourself:

• Check your contract. Confirm in writing whether you are on a five-day or six-day schedule. The whole surcharge calculation flows from that.
• Log the hours you actually work on 15 August. Start time, end time, any break. Keep it on your phone.
• Check the collective agreement in your sector. More favourable terms in a collective labour agreement, work regulation, or established business practice prevail over the statutory minimums. Your baseline could be higher than the 75% figure.
• Compare your August payslip against the scenario above that fits your situation. If the numbers do not match, raise it with payroll before you accept the payment as final.
• If you are unsure, reach out to KEPEA/GSEE. The Information Centre for Employees and Unemployed exists precisely for cases like this.

The bottom line

15 August 2026 is one of those dates where the law is generous on paper and easy to get wrong on the payslip. The rules exist. They are written down. What varies is how carefully your employer applies them, and how carefully you check.

Read your contract, log the hours, and hold the payslip against the scenario that describes your situation. If the numbers do not match, that is not a rounding error, it is money you are owed.