Annual leave and public holidays in Germany

The BUrlG applies to employees regardless of contract type. This covers part-time employees, fixed-term employees, working students, interns who qualify as employees, Minijobbers, and temporary agency workers. Annual leave begins accruing from the start of employment, with no minimum service requirement. Some groups receive extra protection. Employees with severe disabilities are entitled to additional statutory leave under Book IX of the Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB IX), while apprentices and young workers benefit from more generous rules under the Jugendarbeitsschutzgesetz.

The Federal Customs Authority (Zoll) publishes an official summary of the BUrlG framework in English, used as a reference by labour inspectorates checking foreign employers operating in Germany.

Many German employers provide 25 to 30 days of annual leave through employment contracts or collective bargaining agreements (Tarifverträge), above the statutory minimum. Collective agreements in sectors such as the chemical industry, IG Metall, and the public sector (TVöD and TV-L) commonly provide 30 days of annual leave from the first year of employment.

Contractual leave can exceed the statutory minimum but cannot reduce it. Unless the contract states otherwise, the BUrlG’s protective rules, including the six-month waiting period, pro-rata accrual, and carry-over framework, apply only to the statutory portion of leave. Many employers therefore track statutory leave separately from any additional contractual entitlement. The distinction matters because the ECJ’s rules on leave expiry and employer notification apply to statutory leave, while contractual leave can follow different expiry rules where the contract clearly provides for them.

BUrlG measures leave in working days per week, not hours per week. The standard German employment-law formula for part-time leave is:

Statutory days = 24 × (individual working days per week ÷ 6)

A part-time employee who works three days per week is entitled to the same number of weeks of leave as a full-time colleague (four), even though that is fewer calendar days. The mechanic keeps the protective purpose of the BUrlG, genuine rest time rather than pro-rated hours, intact across part-time schedules.

When working patterns change mid-year, full-time to part-time or the reverse, the Bundesarbeitsgericht requires that already-accrued leave is not silently reduced. The safe approach is to lock in the accrued days under the old schedule and apply the new ratio only to leave accrued from the date of the change.

Section 4 BUrlG sets a six-month waiting period (Wartezeit) before employees become entitled to their full annual leave. Leave begins accruing from the first day of employment at one-twelfth of the annual entitlement for each full month worked, but the full annual entitlement arises only after six months of uninterrupted employment.

Section 5 BUrlG (Teilurlaub) applies where employment begins or ends during the year. Before the waiting period ends, employees receive one-twelfth of their annual leave for each full month of employment. For an employee leaving on or before 30 June, only the pro-rated entitlement is due. For an employee leaving on or after 1 July, after completing the waiting period the full annual statutory entitlement is generally due, and any unused leave must be taken or paid out under Section 7(4) BUrlG. Fractions of half a day or more must be rounded up to a full day under Section 5(2) BUrlG.

When hiring partway through the year, it helps to ask the employee to confirm how much statutory leave they have already taken with a previous employer. This avoids granting more statutory leave than the employee is entitled to in the same calendar year.

Section 7(3) BUrlG provides that annual leave should generally be taken during the current calendar year. Carry-over until 31 March of the following year is permitted only where operational reasons, or reasons relating to the employee such as illness, prevented the leave from being taken.

Since the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Bundesarbeitsgericht (BAG) decisions from 2018 onwards, statutory leave no longer expires automatically. Leave will generally forfeit only if the employer has:

• Informed the employee of their remaining statutory leave balance.
• Explained the deadline for taking leave.
• Clearly warned that unused leave will expire if it is not taken.

The notice should be individual to each employee and include the number of statutory leave days remaining, the deadline for using them, and a clear warning that unused statutory leave will otherwise expire. Generic reminders are not enough. If the employer does not provide this information, statutory leave can continue to accumulate until it is taken or paid out on termination.

Employees on long-term certified sick leave continue to accrue statutory annual leave. Under the Schultz-Hoff line of ECJ decisions, German courts generally allow statutory leave to carry over for up to 15 months after the end of the leave year where sickness prevents the employee from taking it. Where certified sickness overlaps with approved annual leave, the affected leave days must be re-credited so the employee can take them later.

Employees receive their normal remuneration while on annual leave. The calculation is generally based on average earnings over the previous 13 weeks, excluding overtime but including regular variable pay such as commissions or shift allowances where applicable. Statutory annual leave must always be paid and cannot be replaced with unpaid leave.

Under Section 2 EFZG, employees are entitled to their normal pay when they cannot work because a statutory public holiday falls on a day they would normally have worked. An employee who works on a public holiday receives normal wages for the hours worked. Any additional premium depends on the applicable collective bargaining agreement or employment contract.

German law does not require a universal pay premium for working on public holidays. The Arbeitszeitgesetz requires compensatory rest, while public-holiday surcharges are usually set by collective bargaining agreements or employment contracts. Many sector agreements provide premiums ranging from 50% to 150% of base pay.

In August 2024, the Bundesarbeitsgericht confirmed that, under the TV-L collective agreement, public-holiday entitlement depends on the statutory holiday at the employee’s regular place of work rather than their temporary work location. Employers with employees across multiple Länder should therefore apply the correct state holiday calendar when calculating holiday pay.

Each Land adds zero to four further public holidays, usually tied to religious or cultural observances. The most common additions, and the Länder that observe them:

Public-holiday entitlement generally depends on where the employee performs work, not where the employer is registered. This matters most for remote or multi-state workforces.

For example, an employee working in Berlin is not entitled to a statutory holiday on Corpus Christi because Berlin does not observe it, even where the employer is based in Bavaria. An employee working in Bavaria is not entitled to Reformation Day, as it is not a statutory holiday there.

Apply the public holiday calendar for the employee’s place of work when calculating pay and leave. Using a single nationwide calendar can produce incorrect payroll for employees working in different Länder.