All Saints’ Day in Spain on 1 November: what is open, what is closed and what to do on the Costa Blanca

The question that comes round every year is what is open in Spain on All Saints’ Day, 1 November. This year the answer is different from usual, because of the calendar: 1 November 2026 falls on a Sunday.

Nine out of ten guides you find online will then tell you the day off moves to Monday. For the Comunitat Valenciana that is wrong. It has decided not to move the holiday. Monday 2 November is an ordinary working day here, while in several other Spanish regions it is a day off.

Below: what that means for shops, pharmacies and transport, how a Spanish cemetery works on the day, and what gets eaten.

What Todos los Santos is, and why it is not All Souls’ Day

1 November is Todos los Santos, a national public holiday across Spain. In Valencian it is Tots Sants.

In English the two days blur together. In Spain they are separate. 1 November is the public holiday and the day families go to the cemetery. 2 November is the Day of the Dead, Fieles Difuntos, and it is not a day off.

So in practice 1 November is the day everything stops and the cemetery fills up, and 2 November is a normal day.

Do not confuse it with Halloween on 31 October either. That is the night before, and by now firmly established here; what is on then is in our Halloween guide.

In 2026 it falls on a Sunday, and here it does not move

Spain has eight national public holidays that apply across the country. When one falls on a Sunday, the autonomous regions may decide for themselves whether to move the day off to the following Monday.

Several regions are doing that this year. The Comunitat Valenciana is not. The Generalitat and the town halls have ruled out moving it to Monday 2 November.

For you that means:

• Sunday 1 November behaves like a Sunday plus a public holiday.
• Monday 2 November is a normal working day. Schools open, offices open, shops open.
• If you work or study in another region, or family is coming from one, check their calendar separately. They may well have a long weekend.

All Saints’ Day in Spain: what is open on 1 November and what is not

The shop side is tidily regulated in the Comunitat Valenciana, and this year it falls badly.

The region sets a limited number of Sundays and public holidays each year on which shops may open. For 2026 there are eleven: 4 and 11 January, Good Friday 3 April, Easter Sunday 5 April, 5 July, Saturday 15 August, Monday 12 October, 29 November, and 13, 20 and 27 December.

1 November is not among them. Expect the big shops to be shut.

What that means in practice:

• Supermarkets and large shops: closed, unless you live in a tourist zone. See the next section.
• Shopping centres: closed.
• Bars and restaurants: open. They carry on as normal, often busy, because families eat together.
• Markets: weekly markets are cancelled or moved. Ask locally, because this varies by town.
• Bakeries: many are very much open, because this is their busiest week of the autumn for sweets.

So do your shopping on Saturday 31 October.

The exception: do you live in a tourist zone?

This is where it gets interesting, because the answer differs from town to town.

Towns declared a zona de gran afluencia turística, a tourist zone, may let their shops decide their own opening days. But not every zone applies all year.

• Torrevieja holds that status for the whole municipality, all year, except 1 and 6 January, 1 May, 9 October and 25 December. 1 November is not among those exceptions, so shops there can open.
• Benidorm also holds it for the whole municipality, but only between Palm Sunday and the Monday of Sant Vicent, and from 1 July to 30 September. November falls outside that.
• Calp and Dénia appear on a 2021 Generalitat list of municipalities with this status, but we could not establish which periods apply to them now.

Two towns half an hour apart can therefore give opposite answers. If in doubt, ring your own supermarket or check your ayuntamiento’s website.

Pharmacies, fuel and public transport

Pharmacies. There is always a farmacia de guardia, a duty pharmacy. Every closed pharmacy has a notice on the door saying who is open that day, and your town hall publishes the rota. Look it up before you need it, not after.

Fuel. Petrol stations keep going, the staffed ones usually too, though the shop attached may be shut.

Public transport. Expect a Sunday service. That matters less than usual this year, because it is a Sunday. If you are using the TRAM or the bus, still check the times: some lines run an altered timetable on public holidays.

Doctor and emergencies. The out-of-hours surgery works as it does on a Sunday and A and E is normal. The emergency number stays 112.

The cemetery: what you see and how it works

If you have come from northern Europe, this is the day the difference feels biggest. A Spanish cemetery is not a quiet lawn with headstones but a walled little town with streets that have names and walls full of nichos, burial niches stacked above one another.

On and around 1 November this is what happens:

• Families come to clean, put flowers out and catch up. It is busy, but not gloomy.
• The classic flower is the chrysanthemum. Buy them a few days ahead, because by 31 October the florists are empty and expensive.
• Many towns extend the opening hours, put on extra buses and have the Policía Local manage the traffic.
• There is often a mass at the cemetery itself, usually in the afternoon.

Etiquette. As an outsider you are perfectly free to walk round; it is public ground and nobody will think twice. Do not photograph people at a grave. Do not dress up specially, but do not turn up in beachwear either. And do not go at four in the afternoon if you want quiet, because that is the busiest hour.

Benitatxell: extended hours and the Nit d’Ànimes

Benitatxell has published its programme for 2026.

The cemetery is open from 07:30 to 20:00 on 30 and 31 October and on 1 November. The Policía Local reinforces traffic control at the busiest hours and spaces are reserved for people with reduced mobility.

On Sunday 1 November from 11:30 there is live music at the cemetery, violin and piano, by Lucia Cholbi de Lamo and Mari Carmen Buigues Yuste of the Aljub association.

The night before brings the Nit d’Ànimes, Saturday 31 October: 17:45 a costume parade from the town hall to the calle Llebeig with the Bandeta Juvenil, 18:30 horror games in the calle Llebeig and a mini-disco in the calle La Pau, a horror route called El sarcòfag del faraó at the Centro Social, and 19:00 Survival Zombie in the calle La Pau. No finishing times have been published.

On Friday 30 October at 18:00 the library runs a Cineclub Edición Terror, which the town says is for all ages.

Villajoyosa: a bus to the cemetery

Villajoyosa has the most worked-out arrangement we found for 2026.

The cemetery is open from Monday 26 October to Sunday 1 November, every day from 07:00 to 19:00, with no midday closure.

The bus runs from the Parc de la Barbera dels Aragonés to the cemetery:

• Wednesday 28 to Saturday 31 October: every half hour, from 09:15 to 13:00 and from 16:15 to 19:00.
• Sunday 1 November: continuously from 08:50 to 18:30, every half hour.

It does not run on 26 and 27 October. Whether it is free is not stated.

On Sunday 1 November there is a rosary at the cemetery at 16:00, followed by a mass at 16:30.

And the rest of the coast?

Here we will be straight with you: at the time of writing, 24 October, Dénia, Xàbia, Calp, Ondara, Pego and Teulada-Moraira had not published a 2026 programme that we could find.

That does not mean there is nothing. Town halls often issue their notice only in the final week. Check your ayuntamiento’s website or Facebook page, or call in at the town hall.

One tip based on earlier years: in 2024 Teulada-Moraira ran a free bus between Moraira and the cemetery and set separate hours for placing flowers. Whether that returns this year we do not know, but it is worth asking. We are deliberately not repeating the 2024 times here, because a programme from two years ago is not a programme.

The pattern you see everywhere: extended opening hours in the week before, extra traffic control, and a mass on the afternoon of 1 November.

What gets eaten

This is the nicest side of the day, and you see it appear in the windows from mid-October.

Huesos de santo, saints’ bones. Rolls of marzipan filled with candied egg yolk and finished with a sugar glaze, twenty to thirty grams each. Sweet, and that is an understatement. In Valencian they are ossos de sant.

Buñuelos de viento, wind fritters. Balls of choux pastry, sometimes filled with a cinnamon and lemon cream, with chocolate or with cream. Bakers start on them in mid-October and carry on into early December.

Panellets. Balls of ground almond, sugar and egg, usually rolled in pine nuts. Catalan in origin, but widely available here over the past decade.

Fogassa de Tots Sants, a Valencian pastry tied specifically to these days, and roasted chestnuts on the street.

Buy them at a proper pastelería rather than the supermarket. The difference is large and the saving is small.

Frequently asked questions

Is 1 November 2026 a day off? Yes, it is a national public holiday. But this year it falls on a Sunday.

Is Monday 2 November off? Not in the Comunitat Valenciana. Several other regions do move the day off to that Monday.

Are the supermarkets open? In principle no. 1 November is not on this year’s list of eleven trading Sundays. In tourist zones such as Torrevieja they may be.

Can I visit the cemetery if nobody of mine is buried there? Yes. It is public ground, and the coastal cemeteries are worth seeing.

Which flowers do I buy? Chrysanthemums. Buy them a few days ahead.

Is there anything for children? On 31 October, plenty. That is in our guide to Halloween for kids.

And the rest of the month? See the Costa Blanca in November.

About the authorMilo Schuijt

Milo Schuijt is an entrepreneur and DJ on the Costa Blanca. He writes about the places where he lives, works and plays: from beach bars to the housing market.