All Saints’ Day

All Saints’ Day on November 1 is a mandatory national holiday in Portugal. The Catholic feast honours all saints and sits immediately before All Souls’ Day, so Portuguese practice often combines the church feast with remembrance of deceased relatives. Families attend Mass, visit cemeteries and tend graves, although the timing of visits may extend across both November 1 and 2.

A particularly Portuguese custom is Pão-por-Deus. Children carrying bags go from door to door on November 1 and ask for ‘bread for God’, receiving bread, cakes, nuts, fruit or sweets. The tradition remains especially visible in central Portugal and has been documented in national ethnology programmes, though it is not equally active everywhere. It differs historically and linguistically from imported Halloween trick-or-treating even where contemporary celebrations now overlap.

Articles 234–236 of Portugal’s Labour Code distinguish mandatory holidays from the optional municipal holiday and Carnival Tuesday. A fixed national holiday remains on its calendar date when it falls at a weekend; Portuguese law does not supply a general substitute Monday. Businesses that are legally permitted or required to operate can schedule work under holiday-work and compensatory-rest rules. Autonomous-region and municipal calendars may add local dates without changing this nationwide status.