4-Day Work Week Statistics 2026: Trial Results & Surveys
The most famous four-day week trial wasn’t a four-day week. Iceland’s 2015 to 2019 trials moved many workers from 40 hours to 35 or 36 hours a week, and the nationwide contracts that followed cut as little as 35 minutes a week. The second most famous number, Microsoft Japan’s 40% productivity jump, was one month of sales per employee, and Microsoft moved it out of its results eight days after publishing it. Here are the four-day work week statistics worth knowing in 2026, with trial results kept apart from surveys of what workers want, each sourced inline with the year noted.
Iceland’s famous “four-day week” trial was a 35- to 36-hour week
Over 2,500 workers, more than 1% of Iceland’s working population, took part in two trials run by Reykjavík City Council and the national government, many of them moving “from a 40-hour to a 35- or 36-hour working week” with no cut in pay (Autonomy and Alda, 2021). The report describes a shorter working week, not a four-day one.
86% of Iceland’s working population had moved to shorter hours or gained the right to negotiate them by June 2021, through union contracts covering about 170,200 of 197,000 workers (Autonomy and Alda, 2021). The cuts were modest: 13 minutes a day for public-sector staff in the BSRB, BHM, ASÍ and KÍ unions, and 35 minutes a week for shop and financial-services workers.
The coverage used the four-day framing anyway. The BBC’s headline was “Four-day week ‘an overwhelming success’ in Iceland” (BBC, 2021), and Gallup later wrote that Iceland’s researchers “reported that employees with a four-day work week had lower burnout” (Gallup, 2021). What the report says about output: productivity and service provision “remained the same or improved across the majority of trial workplaces” (Autonomy and Alda, 2021).
Microsoft Japan’s 40% productivity jump was one month of sales per employee
Sales per employee rose 39.9% in August 2019 against August 2018, the month Microsoft Japan closed its offices on all five Fridays for its Work-Life Choice Challenge (Microsoft Japan, 2019). That is the source of every “40% more productive” headline.
On November 8, 2019, Microsoft Japan moved the figure out of its results. Its note says the number is factual but was not achieved by the challenge alone, and came from a range of factors (Microsoft Japan, 2019, our translation). The results it kept: days worked fell 25.4%, the share of 30-minute meetings rose 46%, and 92.1% of employees rated the four-day week positively.
The largest study: 141 companies improved, 12 control companies didn’t
2,896 employees at 141 organizations in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US reported lower burnout and better job satisfaction, mental health and physical health after six-month four-day week trials with no cut in pay, “a pattern not observed in 12 control companies” (Fan, Schor, Kelly and Gu, Nature Human Behaviour, 2025).
The gains tracked real hour cuts. Employees whose own hours fell more saw larger improvements, and three factors carried the effect: better self-rated work ability, fewer sleep problems and less fatigue (Nature Human Behaviour, 2025). Companies reorganized how work got done before each trial started.
92% of UK pilot companies kept the four-day week, and 89% still had it a year later
56 of the 61 companies in the UK pilot, which ran from June to December 2022 with about 2,900 workers, continued the four-day week afterward, and 18 made it permanent (Autonomy, 2023). Autonomy ran it with researchers from Boston College, the University of Cambridge and University College Dublin.
54 of the 61 (89%) were still running it a year later, and 31 (51%) had made it permanent (Autonomy, 2024).
71% of employees reported less burnout and 39% less stress by the end of the trial (Autonomy, 2023). 15% said no amount of money would get them to accept a five-day schedule again.
Resignations fell 57%, from 2 to 0.8 per 100 employees, and sick and personal days fell 65%, from 2.0 to 0.7 per employee per month, against a comparison period (Autonomy, 2023). The researchers say that with a sample this small they can’t call those trends statistically significant.
The UK “four-day week” averaged 34 hours and 4.52 days. Average hours fell from 38 to 34 and days worked from 4.86 to 4.52, because some companies cut less than 8 hours and some staff still worked on the day off (Autonomy, 2023). Only 32% of responding companies gave everyone Fridays off.
In the first US and Ireland pilot, 97% of employees wanted to keep it
33 companies and 903 employees in the US, Ireland and a few other countries ran six-month trials starting in February and April 2022 (Schor et al., 4 Day Week Global, 2022). Of the 27 companies that answered the final survey, 18 were definitely continuing, 7 planned to, and none were leaning against.
96.94% of employees wanted to continue, and their self-rated work performance rose from 7.17 to 7.83 out of 10 (Schor et al., 2022).
The pilots tracked revenue, not output per hour
The UK pilot left productivity out of its common metrics, because companies collect such different data. It tracked revenue, absenteeism, resignations and hiring instead (Autonomy, 2023). Asked to rate the trial’s effect on productivity, companies averaged 7.5 out of 10 in the UK and 7.7 in the US and Ireland.
Revenue rose 1.4% over the UK trial across 23 companies, and 35% against a comparable earlier period across 24 companies, weighted by size (Autonomy, 2023). In the US and Ireland, revenue rose 8.14% over the trial at 16 companies and 37.55% against the same months of 2021 at 20 companies (Schor et al., 2022). The year-over-year figures compare growing companies with their own past, with no control group.
German companies cut 3.95 hours a week and saw no significant change in revenue or profit, which the researchers read as “at least some productivity gains” (University of Münster and Intraprenör, 2024).
84% of employees at checkout startup Bolt said they were more productive after a three-month trial in 2021, and 94% wanted to continue, in the company’s own survey (CNBC, 2022). Self-reports like this are most of the productivity evidence that exists. Output-per-hour trends for the wider economy are in productivity statistics.
Later pilots in Germany and Portugal kept most companies, not all
73% of organizations in Germany’s 2024 pilot said they would continue, 20% dropped it and 7% were undecided, while 83% of employees wanted to continue (University of Münster and Intraprenör, 2024). Compared with a control group, participants slept 38 minutes more a week, but the researchers found no strong evidence of lower absenteeism. A two-year follow-up published in February 2026 found 70% still using some form of reduced hours (4 Day Week Global, 2026).
41 companies and more than 1,000 workers took part in Portugal’s government-backed pilot in 2023, cutting reported weekly hours 13.7%, from 39.3 to 34 (Gomes and Fontinha, 2024). Of the 21 companies that started together in June 2023, 4 went back to five days, 5 scaled it down and 12 continued.
How many companies have a four-day work week? Under 10% in the US
8% of U.S. full-time employees said they work four days a week in June 2022, up from 5% in 2020, in a Gallup survey of 12,313 full-time employees; 84% worked five days and 8% worked six (Gallup, 2021, updated 2023). Gallup asked about days, not hours, so that 8% includes compressed 40-hour schedules.
9% of organizations have implemented a four-day workweek, according to the 2023 SHRM Employee Benefits Survey (SHRM, 2024). The bigger figure still quoted, 32% of employers, is SHRM’s 2019 survey and counts four-day weeks of a full 40 hours. Four-day weeks of 32 hours or less were at 15% in that survey (SHRM, 2020).
0.3% of U.S. job postings on Indeed advertised a four-day week in September 2023, up from 0.1% in September 2019 (Indeed Hiring Lab, 2023). Dentistry (2.7%) and veterinary jobs (just over 2%) led, while software and IT sat at 0.2%. In the UK, the share was highest in jobs that are hardest to do remotely, 1.1%, and reached 16.2% of veterinary postings (Indeed Hiring Lab UK, 2024).
264 UK employers are accredited by the 4 Day Week Foundation as of October 2026, meaning they have permanently cut full-time hours to 32 (gold standard) or 35 (silver) with no loss of pay (4 Day Week Foundation, 2026). The gold standard allows spreading the 32 hours over five days.
4 Day Week Global says its programs have covered 500+ companies (4 Day Week Global, 2026). That count comes from the nonprofit that runs the trials.
Do employees want a four-day work week? Most say yes, if pay holds
81% of U.S. full-time workers and job seekers support a four-day week (Bankrate, 2023). To get one, 54% would work longer hours, 37% would change jobs or industries, and 10% would take a pay cut. YouGov polled 1,137 full-time workers and job seekers for Bankrate in July 2023.
77% of U.S. workers say a four-day, 40-hour week would improve their wellbeing, from 82% of workers aged 18 to 29 down to 69% of those 60 and older (Bentley-Gallup, 2023). The question described a compressed week, not fewer hours. The panel survey of 5,458 U.S. adults ran May 8 to 15, 2023.
44% of on-site employees would change jobs for a four-day week (Gallup, 2021).
27% of U.S. knowledge workers call a four-day week an appealing perk from a prospective employer, and they would give up 8% of salary for one (Owl Labs State of Hybrid Work, 2025), in a survey of 2,000 full-time knowledge workers. Where hybrid and office schedules stand now is in remote work statistics.
Workers who have had one value it far higher. Employees in Portugal’s pilot put the four-day week’s worth at 28% of salary, and most would only take a five-day job for over 20% more pay (Gomes and Fontinha, 2024). How the extra day fits into time for family and rest is covered in work-life balance statistics.
Four-day workers in Gallup’s data reported more burnout, not less
34% of four-day workers said they feel burned out often or always, against 29% of five-day workers, in Gallup’s June 2022 data (Gallup, 2021, updated 2023). Four-day workers had the lowest active disengagement but no higher thriving wellbeing than five-day workers.
Gallup’s own conclusion is that the quality of the work experience has 2.5x to 3x the effect on overall wellbeing that the number of days or hours worked has. That fits the trial data: the Nature study found the gains followed real cuts in hours, and a four-day week that keeps 40 hours keeps the workload. Wider burnout data is in burnout statistics.
Governments are testing it, and uptake stays small
Tokyo’s metropolitan government let staff take one weekday off a week from April 1, 2025, through its flextime system (Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 2025). Standard hours stay at 38 hours 45 minutes a week, averaged over up to four weeks (Tokyo ordinance, 2025), so it is a compressed week, not a shorter one.
0.8% of Belgian private-sector employees used Belgium’s full-time four-day regime as of March 31, 2025, and 2.85% of companies had at least one person on it (Acerta Consult, 2025). The regime, from Belgium’s 2022 Labour Deal, fits full-time hours into four longer days. Acerta’s figures cover 224,000 full-time employees at 20,000 employers.
Belgium’s federal pilot of shorter hours with full pay ended with one organization completing it, out of around 25 that showed interest (Federal Planning Bureau and Ghent University, 2025).
Spain’s Congress rejected cutting the standard week from 40 to 37.5 hours on September 10, 2025 (Catalan News, 2025). Spain’s 2023 four-day pilot for small firms drew 41 applicants covering 503 workers against a budget of €9.65 million (Catalan News, 2023).
The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act was reintroduced in the U.S. House on September 8, 2026 as H.R. 10323 by Rep. Mark Takano, with six cosponsors, and referred to the Education and Workforce Committee (Congress.gov, 2026). Its 2023 version would have amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to cut the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32, so overtime starts after 32 (GovInfo, 2023).
State bills are pilots, not mandates. New Jersey’s S4242, introduced May 14, 2026, would set up a four-day week pilot for some state employees (New Jersey Legislature, 2026), and Pennsylvania’s HB 884 would create a pilot program with tax credits for employers (Pennsylvania General Assembly, 2025).
Kickstarter’s union won a contract codifying its 32-hour, four-day week after a 42-day strike that ended in November 2025, a schedule staff had already worked for years. Management had wanted to keep the right to return to a five-day, 40-hour week (OPEIU Local 153, 2025).
A four-day week holds when meetings and email shrink
The most common change in Portugal’s pilot was cutting the number and length of meetings, and 75% of companies made at least one organizational change. Companies that made two or more changes went back to five days 8% of the time, against 38% of those that made one or none (Gomes and Fontinha, 2024). UK companies did the same: shorter and rarer meetings, new email etiquette, and automated email templates (Autonomy, 2023). How much of the week meetings take is in meeting statistics.
That is the work Carly takes off the calendar. It triages email and drafts replies across all of a person’s Gmail and Outlook inboxes, handles the scheduling back-and-forth when you CC it on a thread, and sends the follow-ups. Its workflows start on their own when a new email or lead arrives, so the work that lands on a Friday gets handled while Friday stays off.
FAQ
How many companies have a four-day work week? About 9% of U.S. organizations had implemented one in SHRM’s 2023 benefits survey, and 8% of U.S. full-time employees said they work four days a week in Gallup’s 2022 data. In Belgium, 2.85% of companies have anyone on the full-time four-day regime (Acerta, 2025), and in the UK, 264 employers are accredited for a permanent four-day week with no loss of pay (4 Day Week Foundation, 2026).
Does a four-day work week increase productivity? The big pilots tracked revenue and self-ratings, not output per hour. UK companies rated the productivity effect 7.5 out of 10 and revenue rose 1.4% over the trial (Autonomy, 2023), and German companies cut about 4 hours a week with no significant change in revenue or profit (2024). Microsoft Japan’s 40% figure was one month of sales per employee, and Microsoft moved it out of its results.
What did the four-day work week trials find? Across 141 companies in six countries, burnout, job satisfaction, and mental and physical health improved, with no such pattern in 12 control companies (Nature Human Behaviour, 2025). In the UK, 92% of pilot companies continued and 89% still had it a year later (Autonomy, 2023 and 2024).
Do employees want a four-day work week? 81% of U.S. full-time workers and job seekers support one (Bankrate, 2023), and 77% say a four-day, 40-hour week would improve their wellbeing (Bentley-Gallup, 2023). Fewer would pay much for it: Owl Labs found workers would give up 8% of salary (2025), while Portugal’s pilot workers valued theirs at 28% (2024).
Related: Time Management Statistics · Employee Engagement Statistics · Context Switching Statistics · The 996 Work Schedule
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