# August: 1 holiday, and no law that closes anything > August 15 is a national holiday in Italy, but shop and restaurant hours have been deregulated since 2012. Those two facts explain the contradictions. URL: https://myitalia.it/stories/what-actually-closes-in-august Last updated: 2026-09-02 August 15 is the only national holiday in the Italian August, and since January 1, 2012 no shop or restaurant has been under any obligation to close on a holiday: what shuts in August shuts by private decision. ## 1 statutory day, and it is August 15 August 15, the Assumption, is a national civil holiday, one of the 11 days fixed by law 260 of 1949 alongside Sundays. Those 11 are January 1 and 6, April 25, the Monday after Easter, May 1, June 2, August 15, November 1, December 8, and December 25 and 26. Nothing else in August is statutory: not the 14th, not the 16th, not the week around it. On that one day public offices are shut and a lot of ordinary business is too. It is also the peak of the summer exodus, which means motorway traffic outbound, cities thinning out, and the coast and the mountain towns at their fullest of the year. ## Since January 1, 2012 nothing has to close at all Opening hours for retail and for food and drink businesses were deregulated across Italy on January 1, 2012, by article 31 of decree law 201/2011, converted into law 214/2011. There is no time limit on trading and no obligation to close on a Sunday or a holiday. A bar can open at 6 am on August 15 and stay open until midnight, entirely legally. The one duty the law kept is to display the hours actually kept, on a sign the public can see. That single surviving obligation is the reason the most reliable source in Italy in August is a piece of paper taped to a door. ## Why the answers online contradict each other Two true statements sit on top of each other: 1 national holiday on August 15, and 0 legal grounds for the closures that surround it. Anyone answering from the calendar says Italy is open, because only 1 day is a holiday. Anyone answering from experience says Italy is closed, because their local bakery had a sign up for three weeks. Both are describing the same August. The resolution is that the closures are a habit with legal freedom behind it, not a rule. That is also why they are unevenly distributed, and why no site can give you a list. ## The geography decides more than the date On August 15 the closures concentrate in the big cities, where the residents leave, while the coastal and mountain towns run their busiest trading of the year on the same date. So the practical question is not what month you are traveling in but which of those 2 Italys you will be standing in on August 15. A neighborhood in Milan and a seafront in Puglia have opposite Augusts. Museums and the main tourist districts largely work through it, because the 2012 rule removed the obligation and the visitors are there. It is the ordinary shops off the tourist axis, the dentist, the hardware store, the family trattoria with 6 tables, that put up the sign. ## July is the American month, not August United States travelers take 39.7% of their Italian nights between June and August, and their peak month is July rather than August. 25.1% of American nights fall in the low season, which is a wider off-season spread than the German market manages at 16.8%. August in Italy is a European month more than an American one. That matters for anyone weighing dates: moving a trip from August to July does not move you away from the crowd, it moves you toward a different one, and it does not move you away from the heat at all. What August 15 does reliably is bend a day's logistics. Book a table rather than walking in, do not count on a pharmacy or a post office, and put the museum in the morning if the museum is the reason you came. The other 30 days of the month carry no statutory closure of any kind, so they behave like any other high-summer day in Italy: hot, busy where the water is, and quiet where the offices are. For the wider calendar, our page on [public holidays](/plan/public-holidays) lists all 11 dates and what actually shuts on each. ## FAQ ### Is everything closed in Italy in August? No, and no law closes it. August 15 is the only national holiday in the month. Since January 1, 2012 shops and food businesses set their own hours with no obligation to shut on Sundays or holidays, so August closures are individual decisions, not a national shutdown. ### What is Ferragosto? August 15, the Assumption, one of the 11 national civil holidays fixed by law 260 of 1949. It is the peak day of the Italian summer exodus: closures spread through the big cities while the coast and the tourist towns are at their fullest. ### Will restaurants be open on August 15? Some will, some will not, and the rule is geographic rather than legal. In the big cities closures are widest on and around August 15; on the coast and in tourist towns August 15 is the busiest trading day of the year. No obligation to close has existed since 2012. ### Is August the month with the most Americans in Italy? No. July is the peak month for United States visitors. Between June and August they take 39.7% of their nights in Italy, but 25.1% falls in the low season, a wider off-season spread than the German market at 16.8%. ### How can I check whether a place will be open in August? Look at the door. The one duty left after the 2012 deregulation is to display the hours actually kept on a visible sign, so a handwritten card with 2 dates on it outranks any website, aggregator or opening-hours widget. ## Sources | Fact | Source | Confidence | Valid until | |---|---|---|---| | Il 15 agosto (Assunzione della Beata Vergine Maria, 'Ferragosto') e' festivita' nazionale in Italia; e' il picco dell'esodo estivo, con chiusure diffuse di negozi, ristoranti e servizi nelle citta' e massimo affollamento su coste e localita' turistiche. | [Camera dei Deputati](https://www.camera.it/leg17/561?appro=app_festivita_norme) | medium | 2029-12-31 | | Dal 1 gennaio 2012 gli orari degli esercizi commerciali al dettaglio e delle attivita' di somministrazione di alimenti e bevande sono liberalizzati in tutta Italia: nessun vincolo di orario e nessun obbligo di chiusura domenicale o festiva (art. 31 del D.L. 6 dicembre 2011, n. 201, convertito dalla L. 22 dicembre 2011, n. 214, che ha modificato l'art. 3, comma 1, lett. d-bis, del D.L. 223/2006). | [Ministero delle Imprese e del Made in Italy (MIMIT) - risoluzione n. 294246/2016](https://www.mimit.gov.it/index.php/it/normativa/altri-atti-amministrativi/risoluzione-n-294246-del-21-settembre-2016-orari-di-apertura-e-chiusura-degli-esercizi-commerciali-quesito); [Consiglio regionale del Lazio - L.R. 21/2006, art. 17 (orari rimessi alla libera determinazione degli esercenti)](https://www.consiglio.regione.lazio.it/consiglio-regionale/?vw=leggiregionalidettaglio&id=9081&sv=vigente) | high | 2028-12-31 | | Le festivita' civili nazionali italiane sono fissate dalla legge 260/1949 e successive modifiche e comprendono, oltre alle domeniche: 1 e 6 gennaio, 25 aprile, lunedi' dopo Pasqua, 1 maggio, 2 giugno, 15 agosto, 1 novembre, 8 dicembre, 25 e 26 dicembre. | [Camera dei Deputati](https://www.camera.it/leg17/561?appro=app_festivita_norme) | medium | 2029-12-31 | | L'americano non e' un turista estivo: il 39,7% delle sue notti cade tra giugno e agosto e il 25,1% in bassa stagione; il picco e' luglio, non agosto. | [Banca d'Italia, Indagine sul turismo internazionale](https://www.bancaditalia.it/statistiche/tematiche/rapporti-estero/turismo-internazionale/) | medium | 2027-07-31 | ## Image https://media.myitalia.it/media/event.ferragosto-spiaggia.1600.jpg Author: Jeanne Griffin. License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferragosto_Giardini_Naxos_2021.jpg ## Other languages - it: https://myitalia.it/it/storie/what-actually-closes-in-august.md - es: https://myitalia.it/es/historias/what-actually-closes-in-august.md - fr: https://myitalia.it/fr/recits/what-actually-closes-in-august.md - de: https://myitalia.it/de/geschichten/what-actually-closes-in-august.md