Real-capacity audit
The United States: real team capacity in Q4 2027
Q4 2027 runs Oct 1 – Dec 31, 2027 and holds 66 working days, Monday to Friday. A plan that says “66 days × 8 people” is claiming 528 person-days. Public holidays take 40 of them back before anyone books a day off — 8% less than the plan assumes.
66
Working days
Monday to Friday in the quarter.
528
Plan assumes
Person-days at 8 people, everyone present.
40
Lost to holidays
Person-days already gone, before any time off.
8%
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 team5 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 | People off |
|---|---|---|
| Mon Oct 11 | Columbus Day | 8 |
| Thu Nov 11 | Veterans Day | 8 |
| Thu Nov 25 | Thanksgiving Day | 8 |
| Fri Dec 24 | Christmas Dayobserved | 8 |
| Fri Dec 31 | New Year's Dayobserved | 8 |
What the national list for the United States leaves out
United States
8 people · 5 days off each · 40 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.
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 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