Holiday entitlement (Urlaub)

1. The statutory minimum

The Bundesurlaubsgesetz sets a minimum of 24 working days a year, calculated on the assumption of a six-day working week. Since almost nobody works six days, the practical figure is lower in days but identical in weeks: four weeks of leave.

The point to hold onto is that entitlement is expressed in working days and scales with the number of days you work per week, not with the hours you work per day.

2. Part-time work and partial years

This is where most miscalculations happen, and usually to the employee’s disadvantage.

A part-timer working five short days a week is entitled to the same number of holiday days as a full-timer working five long days, because entitlement is counted in days. Reducing someone’s holiday days because they work fewer hours per day is a common error.

Where the number of days per week changes, entitlement is recalculated in proportion. And for a partial year, entitlement accrues at a twelfth of the annual figure for each full month of employment.

3. Carrying leave into the next year

The starting rule is that holiday relates to its calendar year and should be taken within it. Carrying over is permitted for urgent operational or personal reasons, and carried-over days must then normally be used by 31 March.

That is not the whole story, and the difference is worth money. European and German case law has established that your leave does not simply lapse unless the employer actually told you, clearly and in good time, how much leave you had left and that it would otherwise expire.

Where an employer never did that, entitlement can accumulate across years rather than expiring. Employers who send an annual reminder are protected; employers who quietly let days lapse frequently are not.

4. Sickness, holiday and public holidays

If you fall ill during your holiday and get a medical certificate, those days are not counted as holiday. They become sick days and the leave goes back into your entitlement. You have to report the sickness and provide the certificate as you would normally.

Long-term sickness does not destroy holiday entitlement either, though entitlement carried through long illness expires 15 months after the end of the relevant year.

Public holidays falling on a working day are not deducted from your holiday. Public holidays are set by the federal states, so the number differs across Germany: Bavaria has the most and several northern states the fewest.

• Illness during holiday, with a certificate, restores those days to your entitlement
• Long-term sickness accrues leave, expiring 15 months after the year in question
• Public holidays on working days are not holiday days
• Public holidays vary by federal state, which can be worth several days a year
• Leave already approved cannot normally be cancelled by the employer except in genuine emergencies

5. When employment ends

Untaken holiday has to be settled when you leave. Either you take it during the notice period, or it is paid out as Urlaubsabgeltung. Payment in lieu is only lawful on termination: during employment, leave has to be taken as time off.

Employers often ask employees to take remaining leave during the notice period, which is lawful where they instruct it clearly. Check the arithmetic on your final payslip, including days carried over from previous years, since this is a frequent source of underpayment.

• Entitlement for the final year accrues per full month worked
• Untaken days are paid out if not taken during notice
• Carried-over days from previous years count too, particularly if you were never warned they would expire
• Leave taken in excess of accrued entitlement generally cannot be reclaimed from you
• Check the final payslip: this calculation is often wrong