Holiday pay in Estonia: why a holiday month looks different
Almost every employee has one month a year when the payslip does not look normal. The cause is almost always annual leave, and it is not an error. Holiday pay is calculated on a different basis from monthly salary, and that is where the difference comes from.
Updated: 2026-08-02
Calendar days, not working days
Basic annual leave is 28 calendar days a year. Note the word calendar: weekends are inside that number. Twenty-eight days of leave is not 28 free working days, it is four weeks on the calendar.
The basis of the calculation follows from that. Average calendar-day pay is the gross earnings of the reference period divided by the calendar days in it. For a steady salary this reduces to the monthly figure divided by the average month length, 30.4375 days.
A worked example
Take a steady gross salary of 2,000 EUR a month and the full basic leave.
- Average calendar-day pay: 2,000 / 30.4375 = 65.71 EUR.
- 28 calendar days of leave: 65.71 x 28 = 1,839.88 EUR gross holiday pay.
- The same taxes are withheld from holiday pay as from salary.
- If the leave straddles two months, the payment is split between them.
Why a holiday month feels worse
Two reasons. First, if you take leave in a month with many working days, you are replacing more-than-average working days with pay calculated on calendar days. In a summer month with 22 working days the effect is more visible than in a short one.
Second, holiday pay is usually paid before the leave starts rather than on the normal payday. The month as a whole may not be smaller, but the money moves differently and the payslip looks unfamiliar.
Unused leave and the final settlement
When employment ends, unused basic leave is compensated in cash and the calculation is exactly the same: average calendar-day pay multiplied by the number of days compensated.
Unused days expire after the period set in law, so hoarding leave indefinitely is not a strategy. If you are planning to change jobs, check your leave balance before you start negotiating.
Check your own numbers
The holiday pay calculator works out the average calendar-day pay and the gross holiday pay. If your salary has not been steady, enter the actual gross for the reference period rather than a monthly figure multiplied by the number of months.