Annual leave entitlement in Ireland: how your holidays are worked out

Annual leave in Ireland comes from the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, and the Act does not simply say "20 days". It gives three ways of calculating your leave and entitles you to whichever is greatest. That design is what makes the rules fair for part-time and variable-hours workers, and it is also why so many people are unsure what they are actually owed. This guide takes the three methods with worked examples, then the leave year, accrual during sick and maternity leave, carry-over, who decides when you take it, and what you are paid while you are off.

The three methods

Your statutory leave for a leave year is the greatest of:

A "working week" is your own working week, not a notional five days. For someone on five 8-hour days it is 40 hours or 5 days; for someone on three 7-hour days it is 21 hours or 3 days. The entitlement is to time off, and it is expressed in weeks so that it scales with the hours you work.

Public holidays are separate and additional. There are ten of them in 2026, covered in the public holidays guide.

Worked example: full-time, full year

You work 39 hours a week, five days a week, all year. Your hours are well over 1,365, so method one gives four working weeks: 20 days. Method three would give 8% of about 1,830 hours, which is 146 hours or 18.7 days, but it is capped at four weeks anyway and method one is greater. You get 20 days.

Worked example: part-time, three days a week

You work 21 hours over three days, 48 weeks a year, which is 1,008 hours: short of 1,365. Method two gives one third of your 3-day week for each month of 117 hours or more, but 21 hours a week is only about 91 hours a month, so no month qualifies. Method three gives 8% of 1,008 hours: 80.6 hours, which is 3.84 of your 21-hour weeks, or about 11.5 of your 7-hour days. You get 80.6 hours of leave.

Worked example: started mid-year

You start on 1 September on 40 hours a week and the leave year ends on 31 March. By then you have worked about 30 weeks, which is 1,200 hours. Method one fails (under 1,365). Method two gives one third of a week for each of the 7 full months (September to March), which is 2.33 weeks, or 11.7 days. Method three gives 8% of 1,200 hours: 96 hours, which is 2.4 weeks, or 12 days. Method three is greater, so you get 12 days for the part year.

Entitlement per month

People often want a monthly figure. On the monthly method, each month of at least 117 hours earns one third of a working week: 1.67 days on a five-day week. On the 8% method, which is what applies when a month falls below 117 hours, each hour worked earns 0.08 hours of leave, so a 160-hour month earns 12.8 hours. The annual leave calculator applies all three to your hours and shows which one applies.

The leave year

The Act's leave year runs from 1 April to 31 March. Many employers use the calendar year or their own financial year instead, which is permitted, and the leave year in your contract or handbook is the one that applies to carry-over and timing. If nothing is written down, 1 April to 31 March is the default. The WRC applies the Act's leave year when it assesses a complaint, so a claim about untaken leave is framed by reference to it.

Accrual on sick leave, maternity leave and other statutory leave

Annual leave accrues as if you were at work during:

• certified sick leave, since the Workplace Relations Act 2015 amended the 1997 Act;
• maternity leave, including the 16 weeks of additional unpaid leave;
• adoptive, paternity, parent's and parental leave, carer's leave and force majeure leave.

Where you could not take leave because you were ill, the Act allows it to be carried over for 15 months after the end of the leave year in which it accrued. That is longer than the ordinary six-month carry-over and applies only to leave that illness prevented you from taking.

Statutory sick pay and Illness Benefit have their own rules and their own guide: statutory sick pay 2026.

Carrying leave over

Statutory leave is meant to be taken in the leave year. The Act allows it to be taken within the following six months if you agree; beyond that, the employer has to have given you the leave, and if it did not, the failure is the employer's. Leave does not vanish because the year ended: if the employer prevented you from taking it or never scheduled it, that is a complaint under the Act. Contractual leave above the statutory minimum follows the contract's own carry-over rule, which can be stricter.

You cannot be paid instead of taking statutory leave while you are still employed. Payment in lieu of statutory leave is allowed only when your employment ends, covered in the holiday pay on leaving guide.

Who decides when you take leave

The employer does, subject to three conditions in the Act:

1. It must consult you, or your union, at least a month before the leave is to begin.
2. It must take account of your opportunities for rest and recreation and of your family responsibilities.
3. If you have worked at least 8 months in the leave year, you are entitled to an unbroken block of two weeks.

Those conditions cut both ways. An employer can refuse a particular fortnight because of business needs, and can close for a fortnight and require everyone to take leave then, provided it consults in time. What it cannot do is leave you with no leave at all, or treat a request as a favour to be withheld. A written leave policy that sets out how requests are handled is lawful; a policy that in practice never approves requests is not what the Act contemplates.

Pay during annual leave

Leave is paid at your normal weekly rate, and the Act requires the pay to be given in advance of the leave. For salaried staff, the salary continues. For hourly staff, the week's pay is your normal hours at your normal rate; regular premiums that form part of normal pay are included, and irregular overtime generally is not. If your hours vary, the rate is averaged over a period before the leave. Tips are not pay from the employer and are not included.

Part-time workers

Part-timers are entitled to the same treatment, pro rata, as comparable full-timers under the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001. The three methods already do that arithmetic for statutory leave; the 2001 Act matters for contractual extras. If full-timers get 25 days and you work half their hours, you should get the equivalent of 12.5 days, not the statutory 10. The part-time and agency workers guide explains the comparator.

What the contract adds

Nothing in the Act stops an employer from giving more: 22, 25 or 30 days are common contractual entitlements. The Act is a floor. Contractual leave can have its own conditions (service-based increases, use-it-or-lose-it rules, a different leave year), and those are enforceable as contract terms. What a contract cannot do is bring you below the statutory calculation, and a clause that tries to is void to that extent. Your written statement of terms must set out your paid leave within a month of starting; the contract checker shows the full list.

If your leave is not being given or paid

Set out the hours you worked, the leave you believe you accrued and the leave you were given, and ask the employer in writing to correct it. If that does not resolve it, a complaint under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 goes to the WRC within 6 months of the breach, extendable to 12 months for reasonable cause. For leave not given in a leave year, the WRC treats the end of the leave year, or the end of the six-month carry-over period, as the date the contravention occurred, so a complaint about last year's leave may still be in time. The WRC can order the leave to be given or paid and award compensation it considers just and equitable; reported awards are on the awards page. There is no fee and no costs either way. The WRC deadline checker gives the date.

Where this leaves you

Your statutory leave is the greatest of four weeks for 1,365 hours, one third of a week for each month of 117 hours, or 8% of hours worked up to four weeks. It accrues on sick leave and maternity leave, has to be taken in the leave year or the six months after, is timed by the employer after consulting you, and is paid at your normal rate in advance. Put your hours into the annual leave calculator: it applies all three methods and tells you which one gives you the most, which is the figure your employer has to honour.