I started a new remote job where I get 2 vacation days per month (you accrue 2 days every month), which means you don’t have to spend them rightaway, you can collect them for few months and then use them for a vacation abroad or smth. I don’t know if this is good or bad, it’s great that i’ll have 24 days per year but on the other hand, I’d have to wait MONTHS if I want to go on a longer holiday….
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I get 30 working in Sweden. They’re all given in April.
5 weeks per year. Can transfer unused from last year though.
25 days by law, which you earn 2,06 of per month. Then 5 more days is the norm, which comes from the union’s agreement with the company.
The company I work at allows me to “sell” these 5 extra days for 0,5% pay increase per day – I sold all 5 for 2,5%, since I work a lot of OT.
At my husbands work it is 5 weeks in Sweden, 4 have to be used during summer so they can deep clean the factory.
25 days by law, plus 5 additional days through my union’s collective agreement.
You’re required to take at least 20 vacation days per year. Any days beyond that can be carried over to the following year, for up to five years.
I think 21 + another 12 days negotiated. Usually we keep a couple of them for Easter/ Christmas extra-long holidays and the remaining ones for a longer holiday during summer.
If we don’t use them all we can report them for the next year. There are some years when we are busy af and barely make it to a 5 days holiday and years when we can go for a full 3 week holiday or something crazy like that :))
Austria:
5 weeks per year. If you have a certain time at the same company, it could go up to 6 weeks.
Plus compensatory time. If you work more than in your contact, you can either get more money or put the additional time on an account, which you can use for additional days off.
20/26 days by law (depending on how long you worked in your life). Also if there is a holiday on the weekend you get that day back
In total about 25 days. Maybe a bit extra, I can’t check right now.
However this is my 2nd contract of 1 year, and it ends in August. So at the start of the year I only get holiday hours for January – July. When my contract gets renewed I get the remaining hours for August – December. Kind of annoying but it is what it is.
In Romania, by law, the minimum is 20 days for vacation. Most companies will give at least 21 days. And it’s mandatory for employer to give you the chance to get continuous 10 days of vacation.
We also have 17 days off as legal Holidays (Bank days), mostly are religious ones. But if one is in a weekend day, that it’s for you, they will not transfer to another week day.
This is a bit longer – if you have a job M-F then above scenario is applied. If you have a job with workshifts that are also in weekend days, then if a Bank holiday is in weekend day and you work, then you can have a Free day another time OR you will be paid 200% for that day.
Also, some companies have personal days or wellness days that you could take as extras beside vacation days. It ranges from 2-3 days to 12 days a year. But it’s not so common to have them.
38 days according to our CBA (technical industry). Because of overtime I save up around 10 additional days per year, but taking almost 10 weeks off per year is too much so I often sell them again.
20 days by law then another 11 days from my company. National hollydays not included.
4 weeks standard. Get money every month which I can choose to spend on 2 additional weeks or let it payout whenever I want. Can also choose to buy extra weeks from my paycheck. Besides the 4 weeks all can be stapled to 1 year. So if use only 4 weeks and buy 6 weeks extra those 6 years can go to next year. After 9 years I can take a year payed off.
By law companies in Ireland have to give a minimum of 20 days plus 9 bank holidays. My company gives 25 days, which can be taken from the start of the year. The days do accrue over the year, but you’re given access to the full allowance at the start of the year.
If you leave the company and you’ve taken more days than your entitlement by that time of the year the cost of those days is taken out of your final pay. If you’ve left and taken less than the accrued amount, then you get the holiday pay for the unused days added to your final pay cheque.
Are you sure you need to accrue then first? I’m not sure where you are but in the UK it is traditional that you can effectively go overdrawn within that holiday year.
25 days which resets at the beginning of each year.
30 days per year + my birthday. I can also take unused vacation days to the next year (must use before September). So for this year I still have 40 days left. We also get our overtime as free time, so in total I have around 60 days left…. Which basically will be impossible to take. So yeah… Nice to have, but kinda useless in academia.
In Spain we have almost the same thing, although the legal minimum is 22. It’s totally acceptable to go on a longer holidays at the beginning of the year “borrowing” future days. Of course if you are fired for example in the second month but you had used 6 days, you have to pay back for the extra holidays.
Poland. 26 days + whatever is left over from last year 🙂
I work for a large German company, and as a full-time employee, being with the company for 25 years, I get 32 days off a year, plus 12 public holidays in my federal state.
About 5 weeks a year with the option to buy more.
And I’m able to use these 5 month right after my contract starts (or the new year begins) so I don’t have to “earn” them first. I booked my one month vacation right after new years because that’s when my vacation days for 2025 were added. Still got a week left for the remainder of the year (or more I I decide to buy extra).
22 days per year. Unused days from one year can be caried until Q1 of next year (to be used or paid)
I get 6 weeks per year (long time with the same employer). I get them all at the beginning of the year, only in the first year (when it would be 5 weeks) you accrue them ~2 days for the first 6 months and you get all the rest for the year by month 7.
25 days by law + 13 public holidays in Austria.
When I started at my job, my holidays accrued by 2,5 days monthly for the first 6 months, after what I got “access” to the full 25 days. Lots of companies do that, so that if you quit within the first 6 months and have already taken holidays, there’s no problem with you having to pay back for the days over your “allowance”. Maybe that’s also the case as your job OP?
Including Christmas etc, 34 days (public holidays in the UK roll over to the next working day if they land at the weekend, I know this isn’t the case in all of Europe). The minimum for a full time worker here is 28 days. In my case the only mandatory days are the 25th/26th December & 1st/2nd January (or their following week days). My allocation runs from January-December, so there’s nothing stopping me taking a couple of weeks at the start of the year.
28 days by law.
It’s also required by law that you take at least once a year 14 consecutive days of vacation. The rest can be used as you wish (or how it’s arranged by your employer).
In Sweden you usually accrue the vacation days over the course of a year. Usually you get your new vacation days on the 1 of April. This does mean the first year at a new job you might get no or few paid vacation days (except for public holidays). It makes sense that you have to accrue the vacation days first, otherwise someone could start a new job and then immediately takes 5 weeks paid vacation…
Currently I get 6 weeks (30 days) of paid vacation plus the public holidays that fall on a weekday, which varies from year to year (12 in 2025) so 42 paid vacation days in total this year.
26 by Polish law.
PTO is my favorite benefit so I seek out companies that extend it. My previous employer had 30 (to match their predominantly German workforce’s). The current one offers an additional “on demand” day each month (“on demand” means it cannot be denied or moved to another day by the employer; normally 4 days out of the 26 are on demand too).
There are additional days off granted by law for big life events like getting married, funerals of close people etc.
18 days (I work 36 hours) + 7 days which you can use for vacation, save up for the next year or pay out at the end of the year
25 days per year at previous company. 0 as a contractor now. For paid obviously. 20 is minimum for employees. I think you could take more days earlier but if you left your wage would be lower and vice versa if you had leftover.
CZ (and EU) legal minimum is 20, in my position I get 25 base, but I also have some yearly benefit budget that can be spent on extra vacation days, among other things. I can do this for a maximum of 8 extra days, which I always do, so in total I get 33 vacation days.
I think technically they accumulate over the course of the year, but I’ve never had to think about it since if I want to take a longer holiday earlier in the year I use my benefit days (which reset every fiscal year, October 1st)
30 days
Yes, it’s a lot in France, 25 days at base, 10,5 days of RTT to compensate for overtime as a leading employee, 5 days for 10 years of working in the same company, 4 days for being above 55 years of age. BUT (in capital letters) I could never take them all and when I left the company to work for a Swiss employer, I had 135 days of holidays not taken on my counter – more than half a year. We negotiated and agreed on a pay-out.
Per year: 20 days by law + 5 PTO days as a benefit from my company + 2/3 sick days. I’ve never worked at a company which would offer only the baseline 20.
28 calendar days per year, out of which I have to take at least 14 in one lump. This does not include national holidays. If a holiday falls on a day when I have a vacation, I get it back.
Plus my employer gives me a day per year extra as a perk for being with the company for more than three years.
18 weeks per year and they’re at the exact same times every year.
32 days in Germany, the mandatory + some extra from the company
30 + 3 days that are days off beyond federal holidays, but those are at fixed dates.
Financial sector, Denmark: 7 weeks + national holidays + one bank day.
France: 40 days plus public holidays. 28 days holiday + 12 “RTT” to compensate for hours worked above 35 per week.
It’s great.
30 plus 10 public holidays (Switzerland)
Only 5 paid weeks per year, unfortunately. Unpaid, I could take more.
32 + bank holidays from Spain and France.
25 a year, but I have to use 15, and can transfer the other 10 to the next year. So I regularly have 35 days.
I get 30. Law here in the Netherlands is 20 but my employer isn’t and they’re generous 😅
20 days are obligatory and everyone gets them. An additional day is added every 5 years of working and for every child you have. More than that is up to your company. I get 4 days from my company and so have 27 all together. My husband gets 2 and has 25. A friend works at a company that gives 30 days to everyone and extra if eligible.
30 vacation, but I can only transfer 5 to the next year, and if I do I have to use those from the previous year before April 1. I don’t accrue them over time, it just resets and is added the first of each year. We also get a few extra days off that aren’t public holidays like Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve (which are not subtracted from my vacation days, so ig 32 days), plus ofc all the holidays
26 days regular, if you don’t use everything you can move some to the next year, but you have to use these surplus days during the first quarter. Four of these 26 can be used “on request”, meaning even on the same day, without previous application. And at least ten have to be used in one series, so you have at least two weeks of unbroken leave during the year.
I also get additional (usually around 10 days during the year) “award leaves”, but it comes only with some jobs (mostly army and police, but also some related civilian posts). These must be used before three months from granting.
5 weeks per year (4 weeks by law, one extra given by the company) that are transferrable to the next year, but most companies encourage people to use them and transfer as little as possible, because there are penalties if you as a company have employees with too many unused vacation days. My employer also gives 5 days we can use as vacation ones, but those are not transferrable. The vacation days are technically tied into the days I work for during the year, but I took 3 weeks in January and nobody had an issue. I’d just have to pay the company back if I left the company before I worked for the vacation days I took.
So technically 6 weeks I can take whenever I want.
28 days in my company in Germany, while most companies I see give 30 days, though my place sometimes grants Christmas and NY Eve as freebies. We also get the 14 (I think) bank holidays in my state.
Can only carry a few days over to use up in Q1, plus I get an extra 5 days with a disabled status, but if you’re ill on holiday a doctor’s note will get you those holiday days back.
24/year standard,but lot of people work on contracts so for most people its 27. Disable people get at least 30. 14 days shoud be in one piece, others as you have opportunity to.
You get new days as soon as you get new working year, which is calculated based on date you sign contract
20 days is the legal minimum (which is quite low for northern Europe). 25 days is typical for most office jobs. I get 25 days plus Good Friday and Christmas Eve, which are not public holidays.
There are 10 public holidays. Most are bank holidays on a Monday. If a public holiday falls on the weekend, we get the Monday off instead.
2.5 per month + I don’t work on days when our EU agency doesn’t work.
20 days by law ifyou worked full-time the year before. I have 8 years seniority so I have 2 extra.
You sound either very young or you were used to a different vacation process? Because what you describe sounds completely reasonable and normal to me?
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Germany here. We have 20 days mandatory vacation here, but usually it’s 30. The lowest I ever (briefly) had was 27. Plus public holidays (ca. 6-9 days).
Currently I have 31 and the union has negotiated an additional 1 starting in 2027.
Working at a French university, I can decide to work
36h20 a week: which would give me 45 days of vacation per year
37h30 a week: which would give me 50 days of vacation per year
38h10 a week: which would give me 53 days of vacation per year
I worked at a German university before, and there I had 20 days of vacation per year, so the upgrade is quite significant.
The law says a minimum of 5 weeks.
Most labor agreements state 6 weeks, some have 7..
And then when people reach 60ish, they start to have senior days… In some lines of work up to 13 days.
30, all assigned at the beginning of the year (not accruing).
If I leave the position during the year and took more than what would have been accrued by time employed (e.g. I took 18 days but then I leave on the 30th of June, meaning I took 3 more days thanI accrued) that would just be docked from my final paycheck as unpaid days.
In Switzerland by law it is 25 days if you are under 20 and 20 days if you are 20 and older.
I had 2 contracts where I worked as an external and with such contracts it’s almost always only 20 days off per year (was like that for me and everyone I know). When I worked as an internal I had 25 days off (plus 1 or 2 bridge days). At my old company if you worked there for more than 10 years then you got 30 days off per year.
Belgium:
Based on how many days you worked previous year
20 days.
10 public holidays. Fixed. If they fall a Saturday or a Sunday, depending on the company/sector it is reassigned by the company or it is added to your 20 days.
Then you can have extra days depending on the company.
Like I have 3 extra days for being a cadre, 1 day for being in the company for 5 years,..
Assuming full time job total will vary from 20 to 35 in general.
Employment law requires employers to provide 26 days vacation per year in Luxembourg 🇱🇺 if a public holiday falls on a weekend, then the employer must allow it to be taken within 90 days. This year we have 1 extra vacation day as a result
Minimum by law is 25. I’m 40+ and have 42 days, but part of that deal is that I have to use them all in a year, no transferring of days to next year (as you usually can here).
On top of that Sweden has 13 red days (our equivalent to bank holidays). And no limit to sick days, but after seven days in a row you need a doctor’s note. For that sick period, if you go back to work for at least five days that period is over and the counting restarts if you’re sick again.
Barman in Ireland
Twenty days per year. If I work a bank holiday I get an extra day so that’s an extra ten if I work all of them in a year. Also if I work longer than my contracted forty hour hours that gets added.
It usually ends up with about forty days a year and I don’t have to wait until they build up to take a holiday, they also carry on into the next year
6 weeks + 11 federal holidays in France
But 3 of the weeks are imposed (Dec and Aug because of center closing)
In Lithuania. 20 working days per year by law. Additional 5 working days because of my years spent with the company. Then 3 personal days per year as company policy. Finally as a father of two I have one extra day off per month. I am waiting for a third child now and then I will have two days per month.
Then we have 16 public holidays, although many of them fall on weekends of course.
It is all paid.
Yeah, it’s a lot.
I’ve got 43 days in total per year (27 normal, 8 bank holidays, 7 paid days off over Christmas and New Year, and 1 for my birthday).
32 days a year paid vacations
11 additional days of paid vacations because I work 38 hours a week which is over the legal 35 hours work week
I can also take one day a month to get back my overtime but I don’t generally do overtime.
30 days per year (legal minimum is 24 days). Additionally I have flex days (from overtime at work) and 10 bank holidays.
6 weeks and then national holidays which I guess is between 10-20 days
Legally I get 4 weeks, and I get five extra from my employer. Additionally we have about five or six public holidays off, depending on whether or not they fall on a working day.
>I’d have to wait MONTHS if I want to go on a longer holiday….
I mean, yeah … I don’t think it’s unreasonable that you can’t take multiple weeks of paid time off the month you start working at a new place? Is that really so strange for you?
Eta: And as other people have mentioned, many places will let you “borrow” from future vacation days, or you could probably just take non-paid days off.
22 per year minimum by law.
Employers may grant more.
In Munich 🇩🇪
30 days (company entitlement) + 13 public holidays
Scotland. 28 days, plus five more because I’ve been in the job more than five years.
They’re allocated annually though, I don’t have to save them up at a rate of two a month.
31 days.
31 yo, Belgium.
Working in Spain in tech and I get 22 vacation days, TONS of public holidays (I think there are 12 this year) + 90 hours of time off (if you work more than 40h/week).
Fridays I work 7 hours, July and August 7 hours Monday to Friday.
If I use the hours on Fridays and combine vacation days with public holidays this year I calculated a total of 2 working months OFF, FULLY PAID.
This feels like heaven after working for US and Korean companies 🤣
25 by law in Austria 🇦🇹
my company gives you 5 additional days after 15 years of employment
Check with your employer, most business in IRL you gain your full holiday allowance on Jan 1. In your case you would have 24 usable days on Jan 1.
The number of days you have earned at any point in the year is irrelevant, unless you chose to leave the company before the end of the year and then any holiday dept or excess earned is deducted or paid in your last cheque
I have 6 weeks which is the standard at my company and then another 2 weeks in exchange for a slightly lower salary.
I get 2.5 per month (did get 2 at the beginning when started working). In addition i get two extra days per year + all national public holidays.
31 days
7 weeks per year in my job with union agreements. Minimum is 2,08 per month accrued.
25 minimun +5 +5
25 vacation days per year for me which is the minimum.
My old workplace had 30 vacation days per year but no flex time and no overtime compensation.
// edit: these 25 days do not include public holidays and to those equally classified days, so 25 days in addition to public holidays and such.
38 days/year, so that’s about 7,5 weeks. That’s the maximum you get in the public sector, when you’ve worked for more than 15 years.
You earn the vacation days during the previous year, from April to March, and the 12th month is ”worth” more than the rest, something like 5 or 6 vacation days IIRC.
Based on my age 21 days, but i have every other friday off, so in reality its closer to 50.
24 working days (a month with weekends)
30 per year, and they transfer over to the next 2 years. So I for example used 18 last year and have 42 this year.
27.5 days is my contracted standard. I also get eight bank holiday days on top of my contracted standard.
I can also carry five days over from the previous year taking me up to 32.5 +bank holidays.
25 days by law (for over 33 people) + 5 days more from company
30 days + 13 holidays
20 days by default (assuming full year work)
++ If your work requires you to be under ground, or in other dangerous environments, youhave an extra 10 days
This is all by law as the minimum standard. Your company on top can offer a few more days as special benefits.
30 per year, plus 9 bank holidays and Good Friday off too. Irish.
Min 4 weeks, but can carry up to 2 weeks from the year prior.
This year I have 6 weeks.
I’m a teacher.
I have 14 weeks “class-free”, but am expected to use that time for preparations and training.
30 days vacation + 24.12. and 31.12. work free + 10 days of public festives/holidays (Germany/Hamburg).
Germany: 30 days + public holidays + any accumulated overtime can be used to take days off in my company.
Considering all of the above I end up with around 45 days per year. Any unused holdays can be transfered until the end of 1st quarter of the next year.
I do not have to wait all year to accumulate the holidays. I get the amount on 1st of January and can use it all already, if I please, but if I would leave the company then they would discount the holiday overflow from my latest salary