How many vacation days are provided for employees in Germany each year?
Minimum vacation
The Federal Leave Act stipulates a minimum leave period of 24 working days, whereby it is assumed that Saturday is a working day. Based on a 5-day week from Monday to Friday, this results in 30 days minimum vacation, which corresponds to 4 weeks.
Of these four weeks, at least two weeks must be taken in a row so that you can regenerate sufficiently.
Young people between the ages of 16 and 18 receive 30 days’ vacation, while severely disabled employees are entitled to 5 additional days’ vacation.
Industry vacation
Various sectors have also negotiated a higher number of vacation days. For example, every employee in the construction industry must be granted 30 days of vacation per year.
Take vacation
Leave must be applied for in accordance with the employer’s specifications with sufficient advance notice and approved by the supervisor. You should therefore not simply stay at home without a signed vacation request because you have made a verbal agreement with someone. Such behavior can have serious consequences if one of your superiors disagrees with the leave.
You are obliged to use up your vacation in the current calendar year. Saving up vacation days for subsequent years should be avoided, as the legislator wants. In principle, vacation days not taken during an ongoing employment may not be paid out. In exceptional cases, vacation may be carried over into the following year if urgent operational requirements make this necessary.
Compensation for vacation days not taken is only possible in exceptional cases if the employment relationship ends abruptly, for example if the employee resigns and is on sick leave until they leave.
