Paid annual leave is a minimum right for every employee in Spain, whatever the type of contract or working hours. It accrues in proportion to the time worked, so knowing the exact balance helps you plan your time off, avoid losing days and check your final settlement when the contract ends.
How much holiday the law provides
Article 38 of the Workers' Statute sets a minimum of 30 calendar days of holiday per year worked. Because calendar days include Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, for a Monday to Friday schedule they are roughly equivalent to 22 working days. The calculator lets you work in either unit: when you choose calendar or working days it suggests 30 or 22 days per full year, and you can change the figure to the one set by your collective agreement.
This is a minimum: the collective agreement or the contract can improve it, for example with extra days for length of service, but never reduce it. Nor is it reduced for part-time work; someone working half-time has the same number of holiday days, paid according to their salary.
How accrued days are calculated
Holiday accrues evenly over the calendar year. The calculator prorates by days: days due = days per full year x days worked in the year / days in the year (365, or 366 in a leap year). As a guide, each full month generates slightly more than 1.8 working days (22 / 12) or about 2.5 calendar days (30 / 12).
Days already taken in the year are deducted from the days due to give the outstanding balance, and they must be entered in the same unit. There is no need to adjust the start date: the tool always calculates the calendar year, from 1 January (or your joining date, if later) to 31 December. If you enter a leaving date, the calculation stops on that date and refers to the year of leaving; if you leave it blank, it shows the full current year and also the days accrued and available as of today.
- Periods of sick leave, birth and childcare leave and other paid leave count as time worked.
- Public holidays falling within the holiday period do not use up working days.
- How fractions of a day are rounded depends on the collective agreement or company practice.
Worked example
An employee joins on 1 March 2026 on a Monday to Friday schedule with 22 working days per full year. There are 306 days from 1 March to 31 December, so they are entitled to 22 x 306 / 365 = 18.4 working days in the year, equivalent to about 25.2 calendar days (30 x 306 / 365).
If they took 10 working days in the summer, their outstanding balance will be about 8.4 days, which should be taken before the year ends unless the collective agreement allows them to be carried over. If the contract ended on that date, those days would be paid in the final settlement; and if they had taken more days than they were due, the employer could deduct the excess.
Rules on taking holiday
Holiday dates are agreed between employer and employee, in line with any annual planning set by the collective agreement. The employee must know the dates at least two months before the holiday starts, and disagreements can be taken to the employment courts through an urgent procedure.
Holiday cannot be replaced by a cash payment while employment continues. The only exception is when the contract ends with days outstanding, which are paid in the final settlement.
If holiday coincides with sick leave related to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding, or with birth leave, the employee may take it at another time even if the year has ended. If it coincides with any other sick leave that prevents it being taken within the year, it can be taken afterwards, provided no more than 18 months have passed since the end of the year in which it accrued.
Common mistakes
One of the most frequent mistakes is mixing up calendar and working days when comparing a balance with the collective agreement: 30 calendar days and 22 working days are not added together, they are two ways of counting the same entitlement. Another is assuming that untaken holiday is lost on 31 December without checking whether the employer actually allowed it to be taken; European case law requires the employer to inform staff and enable them to take it.
It is also common to forget that holiday is paid at the ordinary salary, including supplements received on a regular basis, and not just the base salary.