In principle, according to the law, vacation must be taken in the current calendar year. Many plan accordingly in good time. But sometimes there are changes. Can the days off still be postponed?
Summer is vacation time for many. However, corresponding plans cannot always be implemented as desired. But what if employees have already been granted vacation days for the trip? Can you return them at short notice?
“No,” says Nathalie Oberthür, a specialist lawyer for labor law in Cologne. “Once a vacation request has been approved, it is binding for both parties and can only be canceled by mutual agreement.” This means that employees have no right to postpone planned vacation – if they want to withdraw an approved vacation request, their employer must agree.
In principle, according to the law, vacation must be taken in the current calendar year. The transfer of vacation days not taken is an exception and must be requested from the employer. This can be due to either operational (e.g. heavy workload) or personal reasons (e.g. illness of the employee or a family member). If you want to save the remaining vacation time in the new year, you must register this with your employer in the current year. Otherwise it expires on December 31st.
If the employer agrees to the transfer, the vacation days must be taken by March 31 of the following year. Unless otherwise regulated in the individual or collective agreement. A payment of the remaining vacation time is not provided for by law. The only exception: the employee resigns from the employment relationship. The entitlement then becomes due when the employee leaves the company.
As long as employees and employers agree on how to handle the remaining leave, individual agreements are possible, regardless of the legal regulations, both in the case of a longer “shelf life” of the leave to be transferred and in the case of payment – and this is widespread in practice.
