The do’s and don’ts of holidays
You are entitled to paid vacation days based on your employment contract. In principle, you are the one who decides whether and when to take those vacation days. If you wait too long to take your vacation days, you may lose them due to legal rules regarding the expiration and forfeiture of vacation days. Illness, for example, is a circumstance that can affect vacation days. We are happy to assist you with your questions about how to use your vacation days in this blog.
Who decides on holiday time?
Under Dutch law, the employee is the one who decides when to take holiday time. Therefore, your employer cannot force you to go on holiday when they want. This also means that your employer cannot expect you to take holidays during garden leave, the period between giving notice of leave and when your contract officially ends. The only way for your employer to get you to take accrued (accumulated) but not yet taken holidays is if you agree to take them before the termination date of your employment contract. For example, the employer cannot deduct days from your vacation balance if you report sick. For completeness, we note that before deciding to go on holiday, you must always inform your employer in advance. Only in exceptional cases, such as a serious disruption of business operations, can your employer refuse your request to take vacation days.
Be aware of expiry date
There is, however, a catch. Your accrued (accumulated) legal vacation days (the 20 days your employer is required to give you if you are working full-time) will expire 6 months after the last day of the year in which they were accrued. The only exception to this rule is if you were unable to take your holidays. This is unlikely to happen because, as mentioned, the employer must generally enable you to take vacation days according to your wishes. So remember to take accrued statutory vacation days from a previous calendar year by July 1 of the following calendar year. Otherwise, those statutory vacation days will expire, and you will lose them.
If your employer offers you more than the statutory required 20 vacation days, those days do not expire within six months after the last day of the year in which they were accrued and can be used for up to 5 years after they were accrued.
Holiday time and illness
During illness, you continue to accrue vacation days. If you want to go on holiday during illness and, according to the company doctor, have no possibilities for reintegration, you do not need to take vacation days for that. The thought is likely that if you are so ill that there are no reintegration obligations, you also cannot enjoy the holiday. If you are sick and according to the company doctor do have possibilities for reintegration, then in principle, you must take vacation days if you want to go on holiday at that time, but only if you explicitly agree to the deduction of vacation days.
Finally, what happens if your holiday was already planned and the days from your balance were deducted and you become ill? In principle, you can still go on holiday during your illness, and your employer must again explicitly ask whether you agree to the deduction of vacation days during illness.
Conclusion
Taking some time away from work is good for you, so take your holidays. You’ve earned it. And if you think that your employer is preventing you from taking time off or is otherwise – e.g., during sick leave – not abiding by Dutch law regarding holiday leave, please do not hesitate to contact one of our specialised lawyers.
