Scottish Court Holidays 2026: SCTS Dates by Court Location

Scottish courts do not use one shared closure calendar. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) publishes dates for individual courts and offices. The calculator uses its revised 2026 calendar and groups locations that share the same dates under one calendar option. If a deadline depends on a court closure, select the option that includes your court or office.

This guide uses the revised SCTS Public & Privilege Holidays 2026 v2 PDF, checked on 7 October 2026. For help finding the right option, see Scottish court calendar settings.

Are Scottish courts open on bank holidays?

Some Scottish courts close on particular bank holidays, but there is no single Scotland-wide court closure calendar. SCTS publishes different public and privilege holiday dates for individual courts, tribunals and offices.

A date appearing on a general Scottish bank-holiday list does not by itself confirm that a particular court is closed. A court may also observe a local or privilege holiday that is not on the general list. Check the SCTS calendar and the page for the relevant location before attending court or calculating a deadline affected by an office closure.

Eight closure dates are shared by every location

Every court and office listed in the revised PDF shares these eight dates:

These are the only dates common to every location. Each court or office also has its own spring, summer, autumn or Christmas closures.

Local closures can change the result

The following examples show why the selected location matters:

Edinburgh Sheriff Court closes on 6 July, but the Judicial Office does not. The Judicial Office closes on 24 December, but Edinburgh Sheriff Court does not. The two calendars therefore produce different results for some periods.

A general Scottish bank-holiday list is not a substitute for an SCTS calendar. For example, every location in the SCTS table closes on Easter Monday, although GOV.UK does not list Easter Monday as a Scotland-wide bank holiday.

The SCTS public-holidays page and the individual location pages carry each court's full list. The Edinburgh Sheriff Court page, for instance, lists its 2026 holidays one by one.

The revised v2 calendar matters

SCTS replaced its original 2026 PDF with version 2, which made three changes:

• 6 July was added for Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Livingston and Selkirk Sheriff Courts;
• the half-day asterisks were removed, having previously appeared for Headquarters on 11 September, Tribunals Operations Glasgow on 25 September, and the Judicial Office, Office of the Public Guardian and Supreme Courts Glasgow on 24 December; and
• a note was added about a floating public holiday for employees of most Sheriff Courts.

The calculator uses v2. It includes the four new 6 July closures and treats the dates whose asterisks were removed as full closures. If you compare results based on the two versions, these changes may explain a different deadline. Keep the source version with any result you need to refer back to.

The floating holiday is leave for employees, subject to approval and operational requirements. It has no fixed date in the PDF and is not included as a court closure in the calculator. Check with the court if you need to confirm its opening hours.

Version 2 has no starred dates. Where a starred half-day closure does appear in an SCTS calendar, the calculator counts that date as a working day, because the court is open for part of it. Check the office hours if the deadline falls on one.

The annual calendar does not show every change to office hours. Edinburgh Sheriff Court publishes monthly afternoon closures for parts of its office. Those are office hours, not whole-court holidays.

Worked example: Edinburgh and the Judicial Office

Assume a procedure requires filing within six calendar days after 30 June 2026, excludes the start date and includes the final day. It also allows filing on the next open day if the final day is a court closure. The sixth day is Monday 6 July 2026 before the court calendar is applied.

Open the Edinburgh court-calendar example in the calculator.

For Edinburgh, the calculator identifies the 6 July closure and moves the filing date to 7 July. For the Judicial Office, 6 July remains the result. The result identifies the selected court calendar and any final-day adjustment, so you can check the reason for the date and keep it with the filing timetable. Changing only the selected calendar explains the difference. For a separate walkthrough across Easter, see the Scottish filing use case.

What the calendar cannot answer

Use the PDF to check when a court is closed. Check the procedural rule for the number of days, the date to count from, the counting method and whether a closure extends a deadline. Establish those inputs before using the calendar; a published closure alone does not determine your deadline.

SCTS maintains separate collections for Court of Session rules and Sheriff Court civil procedure rules. Filing cutoffs, partial office hours and urgent arrangements come from SCTS directly rather than from the annual holiday list.

Sources

• SCTS public and privilege holidays — the official annual source page
• SCTS Public & Privilege Holidays 2026 v2, common dates, local differences and floating-holiday note checked 7 October 2026
• Edinburgh Sheriff Court & JP Court, location-specific holiday and office information
• SCTS rules of court for the applicable procedural rules