Holiday split planner: United States

How to split your school breaks

1. Open Edit holiday settings. Select Federal holidays and read the coverage notes. State, local, employer and school calendars are outside this list.
2. Enter the first and last dates of each school break. Both dates are included; use the dates from your school.
3. Choose halves, alternate years or set days. For halves and alternate years, choose who goes first in odd years; the other parent goes first in even years.
4. For set days, add parent date ranges covering every day of the break once, without gaps or overlaps.
5. Check the allocation summary, browse one week at a time and read the holiday coverage notes. Save, share, print or export both parents in one calendar file or either parent separately.

How it works

Breaks use inclusive calendar dates. A break from 18 December to 2 January includes both 18 December and 2 January. The planner counts calendar dates, not legal parenting-time percentages or overnight stays.

Halves gives the first parent half the dates, rounded up when the total is odd. The second parent receives the remaining dates. A one-day break therefore belongs to the first parent. With alternate years, the whole break belongs to the selected year's parent. The year in which the break starts decides odd or even ownership, including a break ending the following year.

Set days lets you enter specific first and last dates for each parent. Every date must be assigned once. Adjacent ranges for the same parent are combined in the output and calendar export. Breaks cannot overlap because that could assign a date twice.

Public holidays are reference markers, not changes to your allocation. Actual calendar dates, published observed dates, additional holidays and part-day holidays are labelled separately. Regional coverage and supported years are shown beside the result. Missing holiday data is identified explicitly; an unmarked date outside coverage does not mean there is no holiday.

School holidays are entered by you and are not inferred from public holidays. Official holiday data is stored with this site and does not update live. Check the source dates and your school's calendar before relying on a plan.

Calendar downloads contain all-day blocks for both parents or the chosen parent, with the end date set to the day after the last included date. No handover time is assumed. The planner does not replace an agreement, court order or legal advice, and does not merge these allocations into a repeating custody calendar.

The United States page covers federal holidays in 2027 and 2028. It does not supply state holidays, local observances, employer closures or school district calendars.

Actual federal holiday dates and OPM observed dates remain separate markers. Christmas Day 2027 is Saturday, 25 December, with Friday, 24 December observed. New Year's Day 2028 is observed on 31 December 2027, so that observed marker appears in the 2027 list.

Worked example

United States: enter an illustrative school break from 18 December 2027 to 2 January 2028, choose Federal holidays, halves and Parent A first in odd years. These are family-entered dates, not a school district calendar:

• Parent A receives 18 to 25 December: eight calendar dates.
• Parent B receives 26 December to 2 January: eight calendar dates.
• Christmas Day on 25 December and its OPM observed date on 24 December fall in A's block. New Year's Day on 1 January 2028 and its observed date on 31 December 2027 fall in B's block. Neither marker changes the split.

Common questions

Related tools

• Custody schedule maker
• 2-2-5-5 custody calendar
• Parenting time percentage calculator