Holidays and days off

For every month you are employed you earn 2.08 days of paid holidays. Employment in a whole year therefore gives you the right to 25 holiday days or 5 weeks of holiday with salary. With less than a month’s employment you earn the right to 0.07 days of paid holidays for every calendar day you’re employed. However you can earn at the most 2.08 holiday days.

If you are an hourly employee or temporarily employed, you don’t get salary paid out during your holiday. You instead get holiday allowance of 12.5 percent of your salary.

If you are part-time employed, your salary during holidays is the same as when you go to work.

If during the period between earning the holiday time and using the holiday time you increase or reduce your working hours, they should be regulated.

Contact DM at 38 15 66 00 or dm@dm.dk and get more counselling about part-time work and salary during holidays.

It is your employer who decides when your holidays should be placed, within the framework that is set out in the Holiday Act. This means that your employer as much as possible should accommodate your wishes. But the employer has the right to take the company’s needs into consideration and schedule holidays at an appropriate time.

Main holidays

The first three weeks of your holidays are called the main holidays. You have the right to use these between May 1 and September 30. You also have the possibility to agree with your employer that you use your main holidays outside of this period. You have the right to a final agreement about the timing of your main holidays at the latest three months before they begin.

Other holidays

The remaining holidays are called “other” holidays and can be used during the entire holiday year from May 1 to April 30. You have as a starting point the right to hold these holidays together for at least five days. You have the right to a final agreement about the timing of the rest of your holidays at least one month before they will be held.

If you have agreed with your employer that you will use your holiday at a particular point in time, the holidays as a primary rule cannot be moved, unless you both agree to it. There should, according to the Holiday Act, be “important, unpredictable, operational considerations” before an employer can change scheduled holidays. In that case the potential costs associated with changing your holiday should be compensated. If you have already begun your holidays, they cannot be interrupted.

You should be aware that holiday allowance and salary during holidays as a rule can only be paid out if you actually have a work-free period equal to the holiday time. This is called the “holiday obligation.”

If you have not earned any paid holiday, your current employer will not pay your salary during the period you have holidays. Instead, you can potentially have earned a holiday allowance with your previous employer. If you have not earned this, you can apply for holiday unemployment benefits for that period. You should contact your unemployment fund about the possibility for holiday unemployment benefits.

Your employer cannot require you to take holidays if you have not earned any paid holidays, unless there is some sort of collective holiday closing in the company. You can read more about holiday closings below.

It is possible to agree that paid holidays can be taken before they are earned. The holidays should however be earned within the same holiday year, and they will be deducted from your holiday days later in the holiday year.

Your workplace can decide to have a collective holiday closure. If the collective holiday closure is planned and announced, your employer can require you to take holidays.

If you have not earned any holiday days, you will in some cases have the right to holiday unemployment benefits or unemployment benefits during the holiday, if you are insured by an unemployment fund. Contact your unemployment fund to hear more about the possibilities for unemployment benefits.

If your employer has not ensured that you have saved up earned holidays for the company’s closing, the employer should pay your salary for the applicable days.

If the company is closed at a point in time where you, after having been employed the entire previous holiday year and until the company’s closure, have not earned paid holidays for all the days the company will be closed, your employer should pay out your holiday pay in advance, and regulate the holiday time in the following earning of paid holidays.

The Holiday Act gives you the possibility to transfer your holidays. The first four weeks (20 days) should be held in the applicable holiday year, but the remaining holiday days can be transferred to the following year’s holiday period.

Since neither you nor your employer can demand that the holidays are transferred, it requires an agreement between the two of you. The agreement can be written and finalised before the holiday holding period ending on December 31.

DM recommends that make sure to agree upon the following:

• How much holiday should be transferred?
• When should the holiday be held? If it is not concretely agreed upon, the employer can give notice to use the holiday with a normal warning time, which is one month.
• Can the transferred holiday be merged with a potential resignation period? It can, unless you two agree on something else.
• Can the holidays be transferred to the following holiday year, if you are prevented from using your holidays because of a hindrance, for example illness or family leave.

Your demand for salary during holidays, holiday allowance or a holiday supplement can expire if you have not met the demands for compensation at the latest three years after the expiration of the holiday year.

If your employer does not meet your demands you have the option to make the demand in a case, at a industrial disputes procedure, or by police report at the latest three years after the expiration of the holiday year. Contact DM to get advice on your situation.

New graduates employed in the state from April 1, 2018 receive in their first year of employment 5 days off.

The days off should be held in the first year of employment, otherwise they will be lost without any further notice.

The reason for the days off is because an employee would not have otherwise earned the right to full holidays (five weeks) from a previous employer. Holiday pay from a student job before the employment would not affect this right, as long as it has not been full-time work.

The right to the five days off is lost again when the new holiday law on simultaneous holidays takes effect September 1, 2020.