Real-capacity audit
The United States and Ireland: real team capacity in Q1 2027
Q1 2027 runs Jan 1 – Mar 31, 2027 and holds 64 working days, Monday to Friday. A plan that says “64 days × 8 people” is claiming 512 person-days. Public holidays take 28 of them back before anyone books a day off — 5% less than the plan assumes.
64
Working days
Monday to Friday in the quarter.
512
Plan assumes
Person-days at 8 people, everyone present.
28
Lost to holidays
Person-days already gone, before any time off.
5%
Shrinkage
Holidays only. Time off and part-time add to this.
This is the half we can compute. The other half is yours.
Holidays come from national rules, so they can be worked out for any window. Booked time off, part-time arrangements and what you have actually committed cannot. Put those in and the same audit says whether the commitment sits inside what is left — using your own recent sprints for pace, with no cross-team benchmark behind it.
Run the audit on your real team7 holidays land on a working day
Observed dates, sorted. A row marked observed was moved off a weekend by that country’s substitution rule, so the date shown is the day actually taken.
| Date | Holiday | Who is off | People off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri Jan 1 | New Year's Day | Ireland | 4 |
| Fri Jan 1 | New Year's Day | United States | 4 |
| Mon Jan 18 | Martin Luther King Jr. Day | United States | 4 |
| Mon Feb 1 | St Brigid's Day | Ireland | 4 |
| Mon Feb 15 | Washington's Birthday | United States | 4 |
| Wed Mar 17 | St Patrick's Day | Ireland | 4 |
| Mon Mar 29 | Easter Monday | Ireland | 4 |
This is the read a single org-wide holiday calendar cannot give you. Each date removes only the people in that country, so a United States/Ireland team loses a fraction of a day where a one-calendar model would remove the whole team.
Per country, and what each list excludes
United States
4 people · 3 days off each · 12 person-days
Federal holidays only; state holidays are excluded. No private employer is required to close on any of these, so a US team may well work through some of them.
Ireland
4 people · 4 days off each · 16 person-days
Good Friday is not a statutory public holiday in Ireland and is excluded, though many workplaces close. St Brigid's Day counts from 2023, the year it was introduced. A holiday landing on a weekend is shown on the following working day, but the Organisation of Working Time Act lets an employer settle the entitlement with an extra annual-leave day or an extra day's pay instead of a substitute day, so that date is modelled and the team may well work it.
What this number cannot see
- Time off is not in it. Booked vacation is not derivable from a rule set, so the shrinkage above is a floor. What your team has actually booked only your team knows, and the calculator is where it enters the number.
- Everyone is counted full-time. A four-day week or a 60% arrangement removes more again; the calculator takes those as person-days in its time-off field.
- Only holidays landing on a working day are listed. Nothing in this window was left out for landing on a weekend. This is why the list here can be shorter than an official calendar.
- Substitution rules differ per country. The UK, Ireland and Canada move a weekend holiday to the next free weekday, US federal practice observes a Saturday holiday on the Friday before, and Spain transfers a Sunday holiday to the following Monday. Most of continental Europe simply loses the day, and a compensating day granted by an employer has no fixed date to compute.
- Regional, state, municipal and religious holidays are excluded. Each country’s own caveat above says what that leaves out for it. It matters most in Germany, Spain, Canada and the United Kingdom, where a large share of real days off are set below the national level.
The full method, including what the commitment check does and does not rest on, is on the methodology page.
Your window, your team
This page assumes 8 people split evenly across the two countries and no time off, because that is all a public rule set can know. The calculator opens on this window and this team — change the dates, add your booked days and your commitment, and the same arithmetic runs on your real numbers.
Run the real-capacity auditThe same team, other quarters
Each country on its own