May 2026 Printable Calendar – Monday Start

A Month That Opens and Closes on Weekends

May 2026 begins on Friday the 1st and ends on Sunday the 31st. On a Monday-start grid that produces an unusual shape at both ends: the first row holds a single May working day, Friday the 1st, and the last row runs from the holiday Monday through a weekend. In between sit 21 weekdays and ten weekend days — five Saturdays (2, 9, 16, 23, 30) and five Sundays (3, 10, 17, 24, 31).

Memorial Day Opens the Final Row

Memorial Day falls on Monday the 25th, the earliest date the holiday can take, and on this layout it is the first cell of the last row. The working month therefore finishes on Friday the 22nd in practice, and the four days after the holiday — Tuesday the 26th through Friday the 29th — carry the final week on their own. Federal offices, banks, and post offices close on the 25th. Removing it leaves 20 federal working days.

The Rows Read as Working Weeks

Monday start turns the month into five planning units:

• Row 1 (Apr 27 - May 3): one May working day; a handover row from April.
• Row 2 (4-10): the first complete five-day week, closed by Mother's Day on Sunday the 10th.
• Row 3 (11-17): a full week with nothing on it.
• Row 4 (18-24): the last full week before the holiday, and the place for anything needing a bank or a counterparty.
• Row 5 (25-31): the holiday, then four working days.

Why the Working-Week View Helps Here

A month that begins with a single working day and ends with a holiday is easy to misjudge. Counting days gives 21 weekdays, which sounds comfortable; counting working weeks gives four usable ones, two of which are shortened. That gap between the two counts is exactly what a Monday-first grid makes visible, and it is why the layout suits anyone planning by weekly targets rather than by total days.

End of School and the Summer Kickoff

The second half of May carries the school year winding down — testing, performances, field trips, and registration for fall — and the final weekend is the traditional start of the summer travel season. The weeks beginning the 11th and the 18th are the two that stay intact, so the practical arrangement is to place anything with a hard deadline there and leave the last row for month-end close and holiday travel.

What a Sunday-Start Version Shows Differently

On a Sunday-first sheet, May 2026 opens with a weekend that belongs partly to April and closes with the holiday weekend sitting across the bottom of one row and the top of the next, so each working week spans two lines. For personal use that reads fine. For a month where the useful question is which four weeks are available for work, the Monday version answers it directly rather than leaving the rows to be counted by hand.

Printing the Sheet

The Monday-first grid takes one side of A4 or US Letter, and the row lines stay visible in plain black ink. Marking the 25th first, then boxing the ten weekend days, makes the boundary between the working month and the holiday period obvious. Use the print button for a copy straight away, or download the PDF to print later or share the same grid with a team working to the same long weekend.