Have you given or received notice and now you don’t know when you will actually not go to work? It depends on the amount of untaken leave you have left in the calendar year. You can find out more about holiday entitlement on termination in this article.
The legislation provides clear guidance on how to deal with holiday entitlement on termination, whether by the employer or the employee. Find out how holiday entitlement is calculated, what your options are with untaken holiday and when you can claim for it.
Before we get to the actual calculation, we should remind ourselves what holiday entitlement actually is. In the Czech Republic, every employee working on a permanent basis is entitled to four weeks of holiday per year. However, some employers provide five or more weeks of holiday, some even provide so-called extra sick days to recover from illness.
Holiday is usually divided evenly between months – for each month in which an employee works, he or she is entitled to one-twelfth of the annual entitlement.
If an employee terminates his/her employment during the year, the holiday entitlement is therefore calculated pro rata according to the number of months worked. This calculation of holiday entitlement is important because it tells you how much holiday you can still take or cash in before you leave your job for good.
Is your employer denying you holiday entitlement?
When an employee gives notice, disputes can arise in the workplace, and in extreme cases, employers will resort to actions that go beyond their normal rights. If you have been in a situation where your employer won’t reimburse you for leave without allowing you to take it, contact our law firm. We will go over the matter with you and suggest further steps you can take against your employer.
Ideally, the employee should take the leave during the notice period. This means that he or she does not leave until the last day of the month, but leaves, for example, three days earlier. However, it is not always possible for the employee to take the rest of the leave, either because of work duties or the employer’s operational needs. In other words, if the employee has to finish the work assigned to him and has no one to hand it over to, or if he has to manage to train a new person to take up his position.
So, if he or she cannot take the rest of the leave, the employee is legally entitled to be paid for the leave at the end of the employment relationship. This means that for every day of untaken leave, the employee will receive financial compensation.
Imagine you gave your notice in May and have 10 days of untaken leave. If your average daily earnings are CZK 1 760, the amount of holiday pay will be as follows:
10 days × CZK 1 760 = CZK 17 600
If you do not manage to take this leave, your employer must compensate you for the untaken leave when you leave your job.
Tip: If you want to give notice yourself, check out the 5 steps to giving notice.
When calculating your remaining leave, you need to take into account how many months you have worked in the calendar year. Generally, for every full month in which an employee has worked at least 60 hours, he or she is entitled to one-twelfth of the annual leave.
There are a number of tools available for employees who want to work out their holiday entitlement on termination, such as online holiday calculators. These calculators work on the basis of simple data that the employee enters, such as the length of employment in a year, the number of days of leave to which they are entitled and the leave already taken. Based on this information, the leave calculator will calculate how much leave you have left and, if applicable, the amount you can expect to receive for unused leave.
If you decide to calculate your holiday entitlement yourself, you can use the following procedure:
Example:
If an employee who is entitled to 25 vacation days per year has worked eight months and has already taken 10 vacation days during the year, the calculation would look like this:
The employee is therefore still entitled to 7 days (56 hours) of untaken leave, which he may use or cash in on termination of employment.
Tip: What about sickness or probationary leave? Find out what the Labour Code says in our article.
The Labour Code is clear – employees have the right to financial compensation for untaken leave. This means that if the employee has not been able to take the leave for reasons beyond their control, the employer is obliged to compensate them financially.
Termination of employment by the employer has no effect on the employee’s entitlement – even if the employee is dismissed, he or she is still entitled to be paid for the holiday if he or she cannot take it. The employee can also request leave during the notice period. However, if the employer does not grant the request for operational reasons, the employer must pay the leave.
Tip: Do you know when you can be dismissed for redundancy? Find out in our article.
The best way you can avoid a situation where you, as an employee, are entitled to holiday pay on termination of employment is to plan ahead. Imagine that you work for an employer who has given you 5 weeks holiday a year as a benefit. In March, you decide to give two months’ notice, which expires at the end of May. In these circumstances, it is important to check how much leave you will accrue until May (approximately 9 days) and try to take it by the end of May.
Termination of employment brings with it a number of changes and obligations. Reimbursement of leave upon termination is one of the important steps an employee can take to avoid losing part of his or her wages. An online leave calculator can help you make the calculation quickly and efficiently, but you can also do it manually if you know the basic formula and have the relevant data to hand.
Planning properly, taking it on time and using all the legal tools will not only help you get back what you are entitled to, but also ensure that your termination goes smoothly and without financial loss.
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Ondřej is the attorney who came up with the idea of providing legal services online. He's been earning his living through legal services for more than 10 years. He especially likes to help clients who may have given up hope in solving their legal issues at work, for example with real estate transfers or copyright licenses.
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