Holiday pay calculator

Three worked examples for different situations

Steady salary and the full basic leave. Gross salary is 1650 € a month and you take 28 calendar days. The six-month total is 1650 × 6 = 9900 €. The divisor is 6 × 30.4375 = 182.625 days, so the average calendar-day pay is 9900 ÷ 182.625 = 54.21 €. Holiday pay comes to 54.21 × 28 = 1517.88 € gross.

A pay rise in the middle of the reference period. You earned 1700 € for three months and 2100 € for the last three. Choose the "6-month total" mode and enter 1700 × 3 + 2100 × 3 = 11,400 €. Daily pay is 11,400 ÷ 182.625 = 62.42 € and a 14-day holiday pays 873.88 €. Had you entered only the new salary of 2100 €, the calculator would show 68.99 € a day and 965.86 €, which is 91.98 € more than you will actually receive.

One week off. Salary 2400 €, leave from Monday to Sunday, 7 calendar days. Daily pay is 14,400 ÷ 182.625 = 78.85 € and holiday pay 551.95 €. The week has five working days, but all seven calendar days are paid because the weekend is part of the leave.

How to read the result rows

The average calendar-day pay is the key figure. It shows how much you earned per calendar day in the reference period, weekends included. That is why it is always lower than your pay per working day: on a 1650 € salary the daily rate is 54.21 €, even though a working day is paid noticeably more on average.

The holiday days row repeats the number of calendar days you entered, and holiday pay is the product of the two. The amount is gross: income tax, the unemployment insurance premium and the funded pension contribution (if you are in the second pillar) are withheld just as from salary. The net figure depends on what else is paid out in the same month and whether your basic exemption has already been used.

Common mistakes with holiday pay

Most surprising results come from the wrong input, not from the formula.

• Entering net salary. The calculator expects the gross amount from your employment contract or the top line of your payslip.
• Counting working days. Two weeks off is 14 calendar days, not 10 working days. Entering 10 on a 1650 € salary makes the result 216.84 € too low.
• Using the new salary after a raise. The reference period looks back, so a recent raise only partly affects holiday pay.
• Entering a monthly salary in the "6-month total" mode. One month's pay is then spread over half a year of days and the result is six times too small.

What the calculator does not account for

The calculator uses an average month of 30.4375 days. Six real months contain 181 to 184 calendar days. If the 11,400 € period spans 184 days, the exact daily pay is 61.96 € and 14 days pay 867.39 €, not 873.88 €. The gap is usually a few euros, but worth knowing when you compare with a payslip.

The calculator does not know which payments belong in your reference-period total or how your employer treats other payouts from that time. If your income mixed base pay with variable bonuses, ask payroll for the exact gross total of the period and enter that. It also does not split holiday pay between two months when the leave starts in one and ends in the next.

Putting the result to use

Holiday pay is usually paid before the leave starts. The money arrives early and the next regular payday is smaller, because the leave days are no longer paid as salary. Budget so that the summer holiday pay also covers the weeks after you return.

If you split the 28 days into two 14-day parts, each part is paid on the basis of the six months before that part starts. If your salary rose in between, the later part pays more, so run each part through the calculator separately.

When you leave a job, unused basic leave is compensated with the same formula. With 10 unused days and a 1650 € salary, the compensation is 10 × 54.21 = 542.10 € gross. Just enter the number of unused days.

To check a payslip, divide the holiday pay by the number of leave days. If the resulting daily rate differs from the calculator by more than a couple of percent, ask your employer which reference-period total they used.