Annual paid leave: who is entitled, when, and to how many days

Kemal Bey the restaurant owner's March

Oğuz started as a waiter at Kemal Bey's small home-cooking restaurant (esnaf lokantası) a year ago. When March came, he asked one morning: "Abi, my leave is due. I'm going back to my hometown in July, can I take two weeks?" Two things went through Kemal Bey's mind. July is the restaurant's busiest month. And what did "two weeks" mean: fourteen days, or with the two Saturdays included too?

Leave fills up like a piggy bank

You buy a child a piggy bank; a little money goes in every day, and at the end of the year it is opened. Annual leave works the same way. As the employee works, the piggy bank fills up; when a year is complete, it is opened and the days inside are used. A piggy bank has one more feature: the money inside does not disappear on its own. Unused leave is not wiped out either.

Who is entitled?

Under Labour Law art. 53, a person who has worked at least one year from the day they started work, including the probation period, is entitled to annual paid leave (yıllık ücretli izin). The right to leave cannot be waived. An agreement like "I don't want leave, give me the money for it" is not valid.

Points that change with the reader's situation:

• A part-time employee (for example, one who comes three days a week): Under the Annual Paid Leave Regulation (Yıllık Ücretli İzin Yönetmeliği) art. 13, they earn the right to leave just like a full-time employee; they cannot be treated differently.
• A fixed-term contract: If the contract fills one year, the right to leave arises.
• Seasonal or campaign work: These rules do not apply to work that by its nature lasts less than one year.

In counting the one year needed to become entitled, some absences such as illness are counted as days worked, within certain limits (art. 55). If the employee had a long sick report or unpaid leave in between, have your mali müşavir (accountant) calculate the date they become entitled.

How many days?

These are minimum periods. You can give more by contract; you cannot give less.

The weekly day off, national holidays and public holidays that fall within the leave are not counted as leave days (art. 56). If there are two Sundays within Oğuz's leave, those Sundays are not counted among the 14 days; the leave gets longer by that much. There is no separate rule in the law for Saturday. The general view in Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) decisions is that, unless the contract says otherwise, Saturday counts as a working day and uses up a leave day; if your contract says that Saturday is a day off, or that the working days are Monday to Friday, it does not. At workplaces that are already closed on Saturdays, this point is disputed. Ask your mali müşavir about your own situation.

If the employee will spend their leave outside the place where the workplace is located and asks for it with a document showing this, unpaid travel leave of up to 4 days in total is given for the journey there and back. If Oğuz is going to his hometown, he can ask for this.

Can it be split, and when is it used?

As a rule, leave is given without a break, and the employer cannot split the leave on their own. But if both sides agree, the leave can be divided into parts; one of the parts must be at least 10 days (art. 56). Oğuz's 14 days could, for example, be used as 10 days in July and 4 days in December.

Talk about the leave dates together. The Regulation (art. 5) says the employer can decide to have leave used in certain periods of the year. The employee asks for their leave in writing at least one month before the date they want (art. 7); the date they ask for does not bind you, but the work situation and their wish are taken into account together (art. 8). If Kemal Bey says "July won't work", he can suggest June or September. Never letting the employee use their leave for years is not a solution, though: the right builds up, and the amount to be paid on the day they leave grows.

Leave pay is paid in advance

The pay for the leave period is paid in advance, or as an advance payment, before the employee starts their leave (art. 57). Example: Oğuz's gross salary is 45,000 lira. If you count the month as 30 days, his daily pay is 1,500 lira, and the pay for 14 days comes to 21,000 lira. If payday falls after he returns from leave, you need to give the pay for the leave days before he goes on leave. Your mali müşavir sets up how it shows on the payroll.

Leave days are marked as "annual leave" on the timesheet and count as full days. No separate notification is made to SGK (Social Security Institution) for annual leave; leave days are not deducted from the premium days. How the timesheet is kept is in the lesson Paying wages and the timesheet.

What happens to unused leave?

Leave is not wiped out. When the employee leaves, the pay for the leave days they were entitled to but did not use is paid, based on their wage on the date they leave (art. 59). If Oğuz works for three years without using any leave and then leaves, the pay for 42 days is paid. The full calculation for leaving is in the last lesson of the module: When an employee leaves.

Keep a leave record

The employer must keep an annual leave record (yıllık izin kayıt belgesi) for each employee (art. 56). The Regulation gives a sample form for this. In its simplest form, these columns are enough: the date of entitlement, the days earned, the start and end dates of the leave, the days used, the days remaining, and the signatures of both sides.

Years later, in an argument of the "I never used my leave" kind, this piece of paper is your best evidence. Attach the leave request to the record too, and keep it in the personnel file (özlük dosyası). The personnel file was explained in the lesson The first day and the first week.

In the end, Kemal Bey and Oğuz agreed like this: 10 days at the start of September, and 4 days in the New Year week. That same day, Kemal Bey wrote the first line in the leave book.