How many annual leave days and how much holiday pay must you pay in 2026?

Annual leave and holiday pay are two of the most common sources of errors in Dutch payroll, not because the rules are complicated, but because employers often treat them as fixed numbers when the law describes them as a formula. This article walks through accrual, expiry, payout, the holiday pay supplement, and the family and care time off under the Work and Care Act as you need to apply them today.

TL;DR

• A full-time employee accrues at least 20 annual leave days a year (4 × weekly hours), calculated under 7:634 BW.
• Statutory annual leave expires six months after the calendar year it was accrued in (7:640a BW), but only if you can demonstrably show you warned the employee in time.
• The holiday pay supplement is at least 8% of annual salary and must in principle be paid out in June (art. 15 and 17 of the Minimum Wage and Holiday Pay Act, WML).
• There is no statutory right to a paid public holiday off. Only a collective bargaining agreement or contract can grant that (rijksoverheid.nl).
• Paid parental leave runs up to nine times the weekly hours at 70% of daily wage, via the benefits agency (UWV) (art. 6:3 of the Work and Care Act).
• The maximum daily wage that caps every benefits agency payment is €309.91 from 1 July 2026 (€304.25 from 1 January 2026).

How many annual leave days does an employee accrue?

At least four times the agreed weekly hours per year. The rule is phrased as a multiple of contracted hours, not as “20 days” (7:634(1) BW), which is exactly why the formula itself has to be applied, rather than copying “20 days” across everyone on the payroll.

The math is simple once you have the weekly hours: multiply by four. For a full-time 40-hour week, spread across 5 days of 8 hours, that gives 160 hours, which works out to 20 days. A 4-day week of 32 hours becomes 128 hours, or 16 days of 8 hours. A part-timer working 24 hours across 3 days of 8 hours accrues 96 hours, or 12 days. Someone who works only part of the year, because they joined or left partway through, gets a proportional share of this annual entitlement (7:634(2) BW).

This is a statutory minimum, not a maximum: collective bargaining agreements and employment contracts often grant more. Record the formula in the employment terms per role, so accrual automatically scales whenever contracted hours change.

What is the difference between statutory annual leave and the extra days above the minimum?

The difference lies in what may happen to the days above the article 634 minimum: only that portion is negotiable. Only “the minimum referred to in article 634” is mandatory (634 BW); everything above it, the extra days, can be varied to the employee’s disadvantage by written agreement (7:638(7), 7:640(2) and 7:641(4) BW).

This distinction is not cosmetic. It drives three separate rules that come back later in this article:

• Expiry deadline: six months for statutory days, five years for the extra days.
• Payout during employment: never for statutory days, yes with a written agreement for the extra days.
• Accrual during sick leave above the minimum: may be limited for the extra days, never for the statutory minimum.

Keep statutory and extra days as separate balances in your time off records, so that for every question (does this expire, can I pay this out) you have the right answer immediately instead of working it out by hand.

When does annual leave expire, and what do you need to do about it?

Statutory annual leave expires six months after the end of the calendar year in which it was accrued, but only if you, as employer, can demonstrate that you warned the employee in time. An exception already exists, in our translation, for cases where the employee could not reasonably have been expected to take the annual leave by that point (7:640a BW). That exception is precisely where the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) has added a hard requirement.

In cases C-684/16, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft v Shimizu, and C-619/16, Kreuziger v Land Berlin, the Court (Grand Chamber, 6 November 2018) ruled that an employee cannot automatically lose statutory annual leave simply because they did not take it. The Max-Planck judgment’s own wording is explicit: expiry may only occur after it has been verified “whether the employer had in fact enabled him to exercise that right, in particular through the provision of sufficient information”. In short, you must show that you actually enabled the employee to take the days, including by giving them adequate information. If you cannot, the entitlement survives, and must still be paid out by the employer at the end of employment.

In practice this means two concrete actions per employee, every year: actively encourage them to take remaining statutory days, and warn them in writing that and when those days will otherwise expire. The extra days above the minimum carry no expiry deadline, only a five-year limitation period running from the year they were accrued (7:642 BW). This is a separate clock that runs independently of the six-month deadline.

Build a yearly, dated warning moment into your HR process: without that evidence, every statutory day simply stays outstanding past six months.

Does an employee on sick leave accrue annual leave?

Yes, in full, and that surprises many employers. An employee on sick leave accrues exactly as much annual leave as they would if healthy, because article 634 BW ties accrual to the right to pay, and a sick employee keeps that right to pay under article 7:629 BW.

Several other gaps are filled too, where someone receives no cash wage but still accrues annual leave (7:635 BW):

• military service
• time off under 7:641(3)
• attending a union meeting with permission
• involuntary inability to work
• time off under 7:643
• long-term carer’s leave under the Work and Care Act
• the period someone receives a benefits agency payment for extended partner’s birth leave or paid parental leave

An employee who, due to maternity leave, does not have a right to pay for the whole year still accrues over their full hours (7:635(2) BW).

Only the extra days above the minimum may be limited by written agreement during these periods (7:635(5) BW); the statutory minimum stays fully intact in every case. Count accrual during sick leave at 100% by default in your time off system, and adjust only the balance above the minimum if your employment terms explicitly allow it.

Can I pay out annual leave instead of having it taken?

Not during employment, for the statutory portion. An employee cannot waive their annual leave entitlement for compensation during the term of the contract (7:640(1) BW). That ban applies in full to the statutory minimum. Only the portion above that minimum can be bought out by written agreement (7:640(2) BW).

This changes completely at termination. An employee with outstanding annual leave receives, at the end of the contract, a cash payment equal to the pay over the period corresponding to those days (7:641(1) BW). You are also required to give the employee a statement showing the period they still have an annual leave entitlement for. The employee can use that statement with a new employer to still take those same days unpaid, unless a written agreement arranges this differently while preserving the statutory minimum (7:641(2)–(4) BW).

Make drafting this statement a standard step in your exit checklist, alongside the final pay and holiday pay settlement.

What is the holiday pay supplement, and when do I need to pay it?

The holiday pay supplement is at least 8% of the pay the employer owes the employee, plus certain benefits such as sickness, maternity, and unemployment benefits received during employment. This comes from article 15(1) WML. The law explicitly excludes the amount by which pay plus benefits exceeds three times the minimum wage, so the 8% entitlement is not unlimited at the top end.

A collective bargaining agreement or public-law scheme may set a lower percentage, even 0%, but only down to a floor. Pay plus holiday pay together must reach at least 108% of the minimum wage for that period in every pay period (art. 16(1)–(2) WML). By default, payment covers the period up to and including 31 May and must be paid out in June. A collective bargaining agreement or written agreement can set a different date, but the hard floor is at least once per calendar year. At the end of employment, the full amount accrued at that point must be paid out immediately (art. 17(1)–(3) WML).

The Netherlands Labour Authority checks whether employers comply with the Minimum Wage and Holiday Pay Act and can impose a fine if the holiday pay paid falls below the statutory minimum. Check every year whether your June payout, including the benefits counted in, still clears the 8% or 108% threshold.

Am I required to give staff time off on public holidays like King’s Day?

No, not automatically. Dutch law grants no statutory right at all to a paid day off on a public holiday. Rijksoverheid.nl is explicit about this, in our translation of its Dutch text: there is no law establishing that certain public holidays are days off for employees, so there is no statutory right to a day off on a public holiday. Whether someone has the day off, and is paid for it, is set out solely in the collective bargaining agreement or the individual employment contract.

The officially recognised public holidays for 2026, per the same source, are:

• New Year’s Day — Thursday 1 January
• Good Friday — Friday 3 April
• Easter Sunday and Monday — Sunday 5 and Monday 6 April
• King’s Day — Monday 27 April
• Liberation Day — Tuesday 5 May
• Ascension Day — Thursday 14 May
• Whit Sunday and Monday — Sunday 24 and Monday 25 May
• Christmas — Friday 25 and Saturday 26 December

“Recognised” here only means the government designates these days as public holidays; it does not by itself create any obligation to give time off or pay.

Always set out your public holiday policy explicitly, in the collective bargaining agreement where one applies, and otherwise in writing in the employment contract or staff handbook, so no dispute arises over pay when a public holiday comes around.

What time off falls under the Work and Care Act, and who pays for it?

The Work and Care Act regulates five types of family and care time off, each with its own duration, payer, and percentage. This sits alongside ordinary annual leave and runs on a separate set of rules untouched by the annual leave provisions in Book 7 of the Civil Code.

Unpaid parental leave runs up to a total of 26 times the weekly hours per child, available until the child turns eight (6:2 Work and Care Act). The nine paid weeks sit inside that total, not on top of it. For short-term carer’s leave, a collective bargaining agreement may lower the 70% rate, but not the duration below 1× the weekly hours per 12 months, nor the statutory minimum annual leave accrual (5:16 Work and Care Act). Partner’s birth leave and extended partner’s birth leave, by contrast, are hard rules: no collective bargaining agreement can deviate from them (4:7 Work and Care Act).

Check which type of time off under the Work and Care Act applies to every request: duration, payer, and percentage differ by type, and a wrong classification quickly means a wrong payout.

What is the maximum daily wage, and why does it matter to your payroll?

The maximum daily wage is the amount above which the benefits agency (UWV) no longer calculates a payment. It caps every benefit mentioned in this article: extended partner’s birth leave, paid parental leave, and short-term carer’s leave all run through this ceiling. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment resets this amount twice a year, on 1 January and 1 July.

For 2026 there are two different figures. From 1 January through 30 June 2026 it is €304.25 gross per day, set in the Rekenregels per 1 januari 2026. From 1 July through 31 December 2026 it rises to €309.91 gross per day, set in the Rekenregels per 1 juli 2026 — the figure in effect today.

Note which half of the year applies for every 70% payment calculation: a benefit that spans the 1 July boundary must use the maximum daily wage in effect for each portion.

How do you keep time off balances and expiry deadlines from going wrong in practice?

Two clocks run at the same time here, and that’s exactly where things go wrong: the six-month deadline for the statutory portion and the five-year period for the extra days above it, both per employee, both per accrual year. Taito.ai sets up and keeps the six-month expiry deadline maintained for each employee’s statutory balance, so it doesn’t slip past unnoticed.

See the rest of the Dutch obligations around attendance, sick leave, and contracts in the Netherlands guide.

What can a collective bargaining agreement deviate from, and what does the Labour Authority check?

A collective bargaining agreement can vary a lot, but not everything. These remain mandatory law regardless of what any collective bargaining agreement says:

• the statutory minimum under article 634 BW
• the non-shortenable six-month deadline under 640a
• the ban on payout during employment under 640(1)
• the right to a termination statement under 641(1)
• the 8% holiday pay minimum (barring the narrow 108% exception under art. 16 WML)
• nearly the entire Work and Care Act, including partner’s birth leave, extended partner’s birth leave, and paid parental leave

A collective bargaining agreement can vary:

• everything above the statutory annual leave minimum
• the scheduling of annual leave under 7:638 BW
• public holidays entirely
• a lower holiday pay percentage down to the 108% floor
• continued pay during emergency leave
• the whole of chapter 5 of the Work and Care Act (short- and long-term carer’s leave)

Enforcement runs on two tracks you shouldn’t confuse: the Netherlands Labour Authority checks and fines only under the Minimum Wage and Holiday Pay Act: meaning underpayment of wages and holiday pay. The annual leave provisions in Book 7 of the Civil Code (634 through 642) are civil law: an employee has to enforce those themselves through the subdistrict court, and there is no administrative fine for it. So if you’re unsure whether an arrangement holds up, first check whether it’s a Minimum Wage and Holiday Pay Act question or a Civil Code question: that determines which authority would ever look at it.

Sources

Where the law refers to an article, this guide uses the convention 7:634 BW (book 7, article 634 of the Dutch Civil Code) purely as a citation; you don’t need to be able to read the numbering yourself to apply the rule.

• Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code
• Minimum Wage and Holiday Allowance Act (WML)
• Work and Care Act (WAZO)
• CJEU Max-Planck v Shimizu (C-684/16)
• CJEU Kreuziger v Land Berlin (C-619/16)
• Netherlands Labour Authority
• Government overview of public holidays — Rijksoverheid

Disclaimer

Taito.ai does not provide legal, tax or accounting advice. This article is general information about the law as it stood on the date above, not advice on your situation, and it is not a substitute for it. Rates and thresholds change. Check with a qualified adviser before acting on anything here.