How Many Days Off Do You Have In Germany When Studying And Working?
Are you planning to study in Germany? Then the number of holidays in Germany will not disappoint you! To know more about holidays in Germany, let’s find out with My Career!
How Many Paid Vacation Days Do You Have In Germany?
Yes, Germany is among the top 5 countries worldwide for the highest number of paid holidays (Urlaubstage) per year. During the leave, you continue to receive your normal salary.
Source: Statista
Employers are not required to provide specific holiday pay or holiday bonuses; however, some companies include a special holiday payment (Urlaubsgeld) once a year in a fixed amount or as a percentage.
How Many Days Off Are There In Germany?
The statutory minimum number of days of vacation that an employee is entitled to in Germany is 20 days per year for a normal 5-day work week. This equates to 24 paid holidays for a 6-day work week. Your paid holiday entitlement is called Urlaubsanspruch in German.
However, most employers allow up to 30 days of annual leave. The average across Germany is 28 days per year. The number of Urlaubstages is listed in your employment contract or collective agreement ( Tarifvertrag ), depending on the industry in which you work.
In addition, you need to take or be allowed to take at least one day off of at least 2 weeks each year to rest and recover from work.
Some companies track and compensate you if you work overtime ( Überstunden ). Depending on what your employment contract stipulates, you may be paid for your overtime or use it for extra time off.
Holidays in Germany
How Many Vacation Days Do You Have in Germany With a Small Job or Part-Time Job?
The number of vacation days you are entitled to as a gig or part-time employee depends on the number of days you work each week, not the number of hours. Let’s look at this in detail below.
Holiday Benefits in Germany With a Small Job
A small job in Germany refers to a job where you do not earn more than 450 euros per month. To calculate your holiday entitlements as a small worker, you need to consider the number of days you work per week, regardless of how many hours you work per day.
Let’s say you work 5 days a week, 1.5 hours a day. In this case, you are entitled to 20 days of paid vacation. However, if you only work 2 days a week, 3.75 hours a day, you are only entitled to 8 days of vacation.
Benefits of Leaving a Part-Time Job in Germany
Like a small job, your vacation benefits depend on the number of days you regularly work each week as a part-time employee.
Holidays in Germany
If you receive the minimum statutory number of days off, you can calculate the number of working days per week by multiplying it by 4.
Working days per week
Statutory holidays
1 working day
4 days off
2 working days
8 days off
3 working days
12 days off
4 working days
16 days off
5 business days
20 days off
If your employees receive more vacation days than the statutory amount, you are entitled to the same amount. You can use the following formula to calculate your actual vacation entitlement:
For example: You work 3 days a week for a company. The company gives 30 days of paid vacation to employees who regularly work 5 days a week.
In this case, you will be entitled to 18 days of paid leave.
How Do You Apply for Leave of Absence in Germany?
You should submit your leave request at least 14 days in advance of your desired leave date by law. However, things are often very different in practice and vary from company to company.
A general rule of thumb is that you should plan and submit longer vacations lasting 1-3 weeks in advance, while you can request a spontaneous day or two off every now and then.
Holidays in Germany
After entering your desired days off into the software, your manager will need to approve them. Only once approved will you be allowed to take time off. Typically, your manager has up to 10 days to approve; otherwise, you can consider the vacation request denied and ask your manager directly.
Unlike in some other countries and work cultures, as an employee in Germany you are required to take all your vacation days. If you do not take the initiative to do so, you can expect your boss to ask you to roll over your remaining vacation days until a certain date.
Can You Carry Over Your Remaining Holidays in Germany to Next Year?
Technically, you are required to take all of your vacation days in the current calendar year. However, the law allows you to carry over any remaining vacation days to the following year for up to 3 months until the end of March, provided certain exceptions are met.
If you don’t take them by the end of March, you’ll lose your remaining vacation days.
Unused or remaining holidays at the end of the calendar year are called Resturlaub in German.
What Apply to Holidays in Germany When Changing Jobs?
If you want to change your job, your leave entitlement depends on when you resign.
Holidays in Germany
❗️ Important note: Typically, your employer bases your holiday entitlement on the statutory minimum in the event of resignation and not on the total amount listed in your employment contract. So if you have 28 days a year and work 5 days a week, you can take 8 days of leave, while by law your minimum entitlement is 20 days.
What Happens If You Get Sick While On Vacation?
If you are sick on a public holiday, the days you are officially sick with a doctor’s note will be added to your remaining leave entitlement. By law in Germany, holidays are supposed to allow you to rest and recover from work. If you are sick, you cannot do that.
However, as an employee, you need to meet the following requirements:
You need to see a doctor on the first day of illness.
You need to present a doctor’s sick leave certificate (Krankschreibung or Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung) to your superior on the first day of your illness and not only after you return from your vacation.
You are not allowed to independently extend your approved vacation days by the number of sick days you have incurred. Instead, these need to be scheduled as new vacation days with your manager.
There are two exceptions to this rule:
If you use overtime to take a vacation, your employer will not officially consider this Urlaub but Freizeitausgleich (compensated time off). If you fall ill during your compensatory time off, you cannot get these days back due to illness.
If your child is sick on a day off, you cannot request your day off to be returned.
What is the Right to Long Term Sick Leave?
If you are sick for several months or years, your leave entitlement does not expire immediately. According to a ruling by the Federal Labour Court, employees are entitled to use their remaining leave up to 15 months after the end of a calendar year.
Does Pregnancy Affect Your Holidays in Germany ?
No, pregnancy does not affect your right to leave. On the contrary, maternity leave in Germany is one of the strongest and most extensive in the world.
Holidays in Germany
As an employee on maternity leave, you retain your statutory leave and you do not need to take time off while on maternity leave.
Bonus: How to Combine Your German Holidays With Public Holidays to Double Your Vacation Time?
Germans like to maximize their vacation days. And the best way to do this is to combine regular vacation days with public holidays. Since many German public holidays are during the week, you can often use just 1 vacation day to get 4 consecutive days off.
For example, if Thursday is a public holiday, you could take Friday off and have a 4-day weekend. In this case, Friday is called Brückentag in German. A better translation would be ?bridge day?, since you are building a bridge from Thursday through the weekend.
German Holiday System
The number of holidays you are entitled to in Germany depends on where you live or, more importantly, where you work.
Public holidays are administered by Germany’s 16 different states and range from 10 to 14 days, with 9 of them being the same across the country. Generally, the southern states of Germany have more public holidays than the northern states, which is linked to the stronger Catholic community in the south.
Below is a map showing the additional holidays each state offers along with the 9 national holidays.
Additional holidays for each German state
Taking a holiday as an employee in Germany is a must. So embrace your newfound freedom and plan your holidays ahead of time like the Germans do. We hope that the concept of using Brückentage to maximise your holidays appeals to you and shows you the wealth of travel opportunities.
