Shrove Tuesday is not present in the working calendars incorporated for 2026. This page preserves its verifiable history; the latest available record is from 2024.
Regional holiday
13 February 2024
1,052,790
Verified data
In 2024, Shrove Tuesday is recorded as a regional holiday on 13 February 2024. The calendars included in the dataset apply it in Extremadura; and a local holiday in Canarias (42 municipalities), Castilla y León (7 municipalities), Principado de Asturias (7 municipalities) and Región de Murcia (1 municipalities), covering 2,595,804 residents in the 2024 register.
This comparison uses only the official working calendars incorporated into the dataset for each year.
| Year | Main date | Where recorded | Residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 13 February 2024 | Extremadura; and a local holiday in Canarias (42 municipalities), Castilla y León (7 municipalities), Principado de Asturias (7 municipalities) and Región de Murcia (1 municipalities) | 2,595,804 |
| 2025 | 4 March 2025, 11 March 2025 and 18 March 2025 | a local holiday in Canarias (44 municipalities), Castilla y León (6 municipalities), Principado de Asturias (4 municipalities) and Extremadura (1 municipalities) | 1,733,208 |
| 2026 | 17 February 2026, 24 February 2026 and 4 March 2026 | a local holiday in Canarias (46 municipalities), Castilla y León (7 municipalities), Extremadura (5 municipalities), Principado de Asturias (2 municipalities), Andalucía (1 municipalities), Castilla-La Mancha (1 municipalities) and Cataluña (1 municipalities) | 1,795,630 |
Demographic profile
Age, citizenship, birthplace and average-age structure from the 2024 Annual Population Census.
50.5% / 49.5%
12.5%
65.1%
22.4%
4.1%
5.6%
45.8 years
Comparison with Spain. All five comparisons are population-weighted and use only the 2024 Annual Census. A positive sign means the covered population has a higher value than the benchmark.
| Demographic profile | Covered population | Compared with Spain |
|---|---|---|
| Aged 0–14 | 12.5% | -0.7 pp |
| Aged 65+ | 22.4% | +2 pp |
| Foreign citizenship | 4.1% | -9.3 pp |
| Born outside Spain | 5.6% | -12.6 pp |
| Weighted mean age | 45.8 years | +1.4 years |
The largest difference from Spain is in “Born outside Spain”: -12.6 pp.
Sex comes from the 2024 municipal register; all other metrics come from the 2024 Annual Census. Each percentage uses the total from its own statistical operation. INE municipal tables 68535 and 68541.
Shrove Tuesday — also called Mardi Gras in some traditions — is the main day of the western Christian carnival. It precedes Ash Wednesday, which opens Lent, so its date changes each year with the Easter calendar.
Traditionally it is the last great day of costumes, parades, music and ritual excess before the Lenten fast. In Spain it sits alongside well-known carnivals — such as those of Santa Cruz de Tenerife or Cádiz — and local entroidos and carnestoltes, each with its own programme. Masks, troupes and street parties concentrate much of the popular festivity on that day.
It is not a national holiday: whether it is a non-working day depends on whether a region or municipality includes it in its calendar. In the festival index it is treated as a regional or aggregate entity when official calendars in the dataset record it that way.
This page explains the day’s place in the festive cycle; the concrete application — each year’s date and the municipalities or communities where it is a public rest day — is verified in that year’s official calendars.
Other holidays
Per-municipality data with its official source (regional gazette). Every date is verifiable on the municipality page. Data from festivos.io — CC BY 4.0.