What recesses or holidays are planned for Congress in 2025?
Executive summary
Congress’s formal 2025 session calendars—released separately by House and Senate leaders and compiled by private groups—show repeated weeklong recesses and multi-week breaks tied to federal and religious holidays: an initial 10-week stretch from the start of the 119th Congress, a Presidents’ Day break in February, a weeklong March recess (week of March 17), a two‑week Easter/Passover recess in mid‑April, Memorial Day and July 4 weeklong recesses, and additional weeks around Juneteenth and other federal observances [1] [2] [3].
1. How the calendars were produced and where the dates come from
The “congressional calendar” is compiled each year from schedules the majority leaders of the House and Senate publish; those primary schedules appear on official Senate and House web pages and are then repackaged by advocacy groups, law firms and trade groups into combined calendars for public use [1] [4] [5]. Organizations such as the National Association of Broadcasters and private law and consulting firms publish consolidated, printable calendars that merge both chambers’ published plans [3] [6].
2. The early-2025 rhythm: long opening session, then Presidents’ Day and March recess
Roll Call’s reporting summarizes the shared structure: after convening, the Senate planned to be in session for 10 straight weeks, with a short Presidents’ Day break on Feb. 17; the Senate’s first weeklong recess is scheduled for the week of March 17, and the House is expected to be off that week as well [2]. That March break follows shorter, weeklong House breaks earlier in January and around Presidents’ Day, according to the same reporting [2].
3. Spring recess: two weeks for Easter and Passover
Both chambers scheduled a customary two‑week recess in mid‑April aligned with Easter and Passover observances; this is described consistently across the joint calendars published for 2025 [2] [7]. Private compilations explicitly mark those two weeks as a shared congressional recess for religious holidays [7].
4. Summer pauses: Memorial Day, Juneteenth and July 4 planning
The 2025 calendars list single-week recesses around Memorial Day and July Fourth, and the House was “expected to be out of session for a week around Juneteenth” in 2025, per Roll Call’s summary of the schedules [2]. Combined calendars circulated by law and consulting firms reflect those summer breaks as standard, recurring windows when floor activity is minimized [6] [8].
5. Other federal holidays and how they affect scheduling
Federal holidays (as codified in law for federal employees) are noted on these calendars and sometimes lead to single‑day observances or shifted session days; the Office of Personnel Management maintains the federal holiday list that calendars reference when marking non‑session dates [9]. Compilations used by stakeholders annotate federal holidays and also note that calendars are “subject to change” [7].
6. Variations, caveats and real‑world flexibility
All calendars carry the caveat that dates are “tentative” and subject to change: the Senate’s PDF is labeled a tentative schedule, and private calendars include “subject to change” language [1] [7]. Roll Call highlights that the House and Senate coordinate some, but not all, recess weeks; sometimes one chamber will be in session while the other is off, and special circumstances (emergencies, must-pass deadlines, leadership decisions) can alter the plan [2] [1].
7. Where to find the authoritative, updated schedule
For the most current day‑to‑day information, Congress.gov provides weekly and monthly schedules and Floor Activities by Legislative Day; official House and Senate majority leader pages host their calendars and any updated notices [10] [4] [1]. Private compilations—BBK, K&L Gates, Holland & Knight, Faegre Drinker and others—offer convenient combined PDFs but are repackagings of the primary chamber calendars [5] [8] [11] [6].
8. What reporting agrees on and where sources differ
Reporting and compiled calendars uniformly show the long opening session, Presidents’ Day break, a March weeklong recess (week of March 17), two weeks in mid‑April for Easter/Passover, and Memorial Day/July 4 recesses; Roll Call and the official Senate calendar provide the timeline context while private calendars map those windows across the full year [2] [1] [3]. Available sources do not mention a definitive list of every single day off for individual senators or representatives beyond the chamber schedules; personnel-level deviations and last‑minute changes are not enumerated in the combined publications (not found in current reporting).
If you’d like, I can extract the exact calendar weeks (dates) for each recess from one of the combined PDFs (for example, the NAB or K&L Gates calendar) and present them as a date-by-date list with citations.