Blog/Guides
How many days of annual leave are employees entitled to in Estonia?
Annual leave base entitlement and extended entitlements, holiday pay calculation and payment deadline, expiry, and the leave schedule deadline — employer guide with Employment Contracts Act citations.
Estonia’s Employment Contracts Act gives every employee 28 calendar days of annual leave a year — a number that sounds simple but trips up payroll for exactly one reason: the unit is calendar days, not working days.
Summary
- Annual leave is 28 calendar days a year, not 28 working days (Employment Contracts Act § 55)
- Minors and employees with reduced capacity for work are entitled to 35 calendar days, education staff to up to 56, civil servants to 35
- Holiday pay must be paid no later than the second-to-last working day before leave starts (Employment Contracts Act § 70(2))
- An unused annual leave claim expires one year after the end of the calendar year it accrued for (Employment Contracts Act § 68(6))
- The leave schedule must be communicated to employees during the first quarter of the calendar year (Employment Contracts Act § 69(2))
- The fine unit value has been 8 euros since 2025 (Penal Code § 47), but annual leave violations are settled as civil disputes, not fines
How many days of annual leave is an employee entitled to by law?
28 calendar days a year — this is the presumed minimum, which the parties may extend by agreement but never shorten (Employment Contracts Act § 55). The unit matters: the law says calendar days, not working days — the detail payroll most often gets wrong.
Public holidays that fall inside a leave period don’t count against annual leave (Employment Contracts Act § 54(3)) — they extend how long the leave runs on the calendar without reducing the employee’s balance.
| Metric | Value | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Base annual leave entitlement | 28 calendar days | Employment Contracts Act § 55 |
| Unit | Calendar days, not working days | Employment Contracts Act § 55 |
| Public holiday during leave | Doesn’t reduce the balance | Employment Contracts Act § 54(3) |
| Minimum, extendable by agreement | Yes — cannot be shortened | Employment Contracts Act § 55 |
Check your payroll system’s configuration: if it counts leave days as working days, it will systematically show the wrong balance for every employee.
Who is entitled to more than 28 days of annual leave?
Four groups of employees get more annual leave than the standard 28 days by law, and each group rests on a different section. Minors are entitled to 35 calendar days (Employment Contracts Act § 56), as are employees with a certified partial or total loss of working ability (Employment Contracts Act § 57). Education staff get up to 56 calendar days, with the exact length for a given role set out in a separate government regulation (Employment Contracts Act § 58). Civil servants get 35 calendar days of annual leave (Civil Service Act § 43(2)).
| Group | Entitlement | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Minor employee | 35 calendar days | Employment Contracts Act § 56 |
| Employee with partial or no capacity for work | 35 calendar days | Employment Contracts Act § 57 |
| Education staff | Up to 56 calendar days (role-dependent) | Employment Contracts Act § 58 |
| Civil servant | 35 calendar days | Civil Service Act § 43(2) |
For minors and employees with reduced capacity for work, the state reimburses you for the portion above 28 calendar days, up to 7 calendar days, out of the state budget (Employment Contracts Act § 66). Your actual cost for their leave mostly stays in the same range as everyone else’s as a result.
Check this at the point you hire: whether a new employee belongs to one of these groups, since it directly affects their leave balance from their first working day.
How does annual leave accrue, and when can an employee take it?
Annual leave accrues for time worked (Employment Contracts Act § 68(1)), but “time worked” here covers more than days actually spent on the job. It also includes time on sick leave and most other statutory time off, excluding parental leave and unpaid leave granted by agreement (Employment Contracts Act § 68(2)).
An employee working a full year accrues the full entitlement; if part of the year doesn’t count toward accrual, leave accrues in proportion to the time that does count (Employment Contracts Act § 68(3)). In a new employee’s first calendar year, leave accrues proportionally from their start date, but they can only request it once they’ve worked for you for at least six months (Employment Contracts Act § 68(4)). That’s a limit on when they can demand it, not on when you may grant it — you can still offer leave earlier by agreement.
| Counts toward accrual | Doesn’t count toward accrual |
|---|---|
| Actual time worked | Parental leave (childcare leave) |
| Sick leave (temporary incapacity for work) | Unpaid leave granted by agreement |
| Other statutory leave (e.g. maternity leave) | — |
| Time an employee lawfully refuses to work (Employment Contracts Act § 19(3)) | — |
Note the date each new employee completes six months worked — from that point they can request leave, even while the year’s balance is still partial.
How do you calculate holiday pay, and when must it be paid?
Holiday pay is calculated from average calendar-day wage. The method comes from Government Regulation No. 91 of 11 June 2009, on the terms and procedure for paying average wage (Government Regulation No. 91), which implements Employment Contracts Act § 29(8) and § 70(1). The reference period is the six calendar months before the month containing the second-to-last working day before leave starts, and pay is calculated per calendar day, not per working day — public holidays are excluded from that calendar-day count.
If holiday pay calculated from the average wage would come out lower than the employee’s usual pay, you may pay the higher, agreed rate — but never a lower one.
The payment deadline is strict: holiday pay must be paid no later than the second-to-last working day before leave starts, unless agreed otherwise (Employment Contracts Act § 70(2)). Any agreement to pay later than the payday following the leave is void. An agreement to cash out annual leave during employment, without the employee actually taking it, is also void (Employment Contracts Act § 70(3)).
| Parameter | Rule | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Reference period | 6 preceding calendar months | Government Regulation No. 91 § 2(2) |
| Unit | Average calendar-day wage | Government Regulation No. 91 § 4(1) |
| Public holidays in the calculation | Excluded | Government Regulation No. 91 § 4(2) |
| Payment deadline | No later than the second-to-last working day before leave | Employment Contracts Act § 70(2) |
| Cash payout during employment | Void agreement | Employment Contracts Act § 70(3) |
Add a separate deadline to your payroll calendar for holiday pay — the regular monthly payday always comes too late for this.
Does unused annual leave roll over, and does it expire?
Leave is generally meant to be used within the calendar year, but the unused portion automatically rolls over into the next calendar year (Employment Contracts Act § 68(5)). The employee must take at least 14 calendar days of leave in one uninterrupted stretch; you may refuse to split the rest into pieces shorter than seven days.
The rolled-over balance still has a deadline. The claim to unused annual leave expires one year after the end of the calendar year it accrued for (Employment Contracts Act § 68(6)). This is not a flat two-year window — it’s exactly one year from the end of the year the balance accrued for. Expiry pauses while an employee is on maternity, paternity, adoption, or parental leave, or on conscript or alternative service.
| Accrual year | Deadline to use | Claim expiry |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 2026 (general rule) | 31 Dec 2027 |
| 2027 (rolled over from 2026) | 2027 | 31 Dec 2027, if expiry wasn’t paused |
Note the expiry date next to each employee’s leave balance and review it before the calendar year turns over — without that, you’ll only discover an expired claim once a dispute is already underway.
Do you have to pay out unused annual leave when an employee leaves?
Yes — when employment ends, you must compensate the employee in cash for unused, not-yet-expired annual leave (Employment Contracts Act § 71). This is the only lawful point at which leave can be cashed out; an agreement to do so during employment is void (Employment Contracts Act § 70(3)).
The phrase “not yet expired” matters here: if part of the balance has already expired under the one-year deadline (Employment Contracts Act § 68(6)), you don’t have to compensate that part. Compensation is calculated with the same average calendar-day wage method you use for ordinary holiday pay.
| Situation | Obligation |
|---|---|
| Unused, not-yet-expired leave balance at final settlement | Compensate in cash (Employment Contracts Act § 71) |
| Already-expired leave claim | No compensation required |
| Cash payout during employment | Void agreement (Employment Contracts Act § 70(3)) |
Before preparing the final settlement, calculate the employee’s leave balance and check whether part of it has already expired — it changes the final figure directly.
When do you have to prepare the leave schedule?
You, as the employer, set the timing of leave, taking employee preferences into account as far as they reasonably fit business needs (Employment Contracts Act § 69(1)). The leave schedule (puhkuste ajakava) must be prepared for each calendar year and communicated to employees during the first quarter of the calendar year, by 31 March at the latest (Employment Contracts Act § 69(2)). It records annual leave and any unused leave; if you add other statutory time off, it gets scheduled the same way going forward.
Leave that isn’t on the schedule can be requested with 14 calendar days’ notice (Employment Contracts Act § 69(3)). Changing the schedule requires both of you to agree (Employment Contracts Act § 69(4)).
| Obligation | Deadline | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Prepare and communicate the leave schedule | Q1 of the calendar year (by 31 March) | Employment Contracts Act § 69(2) |
| Leave requested outside the schedule | 14 calendar days’ notice | Employment Contracts Act § 69(3) |
| Changing the schedule | Only by mutual agreement | Employment Contracts Act § 69(4) |
The Labour Inspectorate’s list of enforcement and fining powers under the Employment Contracts Act (Employment Contracts Act § 115) doesn’t cover the leave chapter (§§ 54–71). There’s no direct fine for a missing or late schedule as a result — disputes go to the labour dispute committee or court instead. Add 31 March to your annual compliance calendar as its own deadline, not something you infer from another date.
Read more on placing deadlines within working time rules in the working time and overtime guide.
What are the public holidays, and which working days are shortened?
Estonia has 11 statutory days off in total: one national holiday (24 February, Independence Day) and ten public holidays, listed in the Public Holidays Act. If one of these falls inside an employee’s leave period, it doesn’t reduce the annual leave balance (Employment Contracts Act § 54(3)) — the same rule that applies in the holiday pay calculation.
| Public holiday | Date |
|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | 1 January |
| Good Friday | Variable |
| Easter Sunday | Variable |
| Spring Day | 1 May |
| Whit Sunday | Variable |
| Victory Day | 23 June |
| Midsummer Day (St John’s Day) | 24 June |
| Day of Restoration of Independence | 20 August |
| Christmas Eve | 24 December |
| Christmas Day | 25 December |
| Boxing Day (Second Day of Christmas) | 26 December |
Four of these days also shorten the working day before them by 3 hours: the working day before New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Victory Day, and Christmas Eve is shortened (Employment Contracts Act § 53). Unlike the leave chapter, § 53 is enforced by the Labour Inspectorate and is fineable.
Check whether your attendance system applies these four shortened working days automatically every year — they’re easy to miss, since they aren’t public holidays in their own right.
How much is the fine for violating annual leave rules?
The annual leave chapter (Employment Contracts Act §§ 54–71) is one of the few parts of the act the Labour Inspectorate can’t fine directly. The act’s list of enforcement and fining powers (Employment Contracts Act § 115) doesn’t cover these sections, and its own fining provisions don’t reference them either. Disputes over the leave schedule, late holiday pay, miscalculated leave, or leave compensation at final settlement are therefore settled as civil disputes through the labour dispute committee or court, not through a fine.
The act’s fining provisions do apply elsewhere — to violations of working time limits (§§ 44–48) or the shortened working day (§ 53), for example. There the fine unit value is 8 euros, in effect since 1 January 2025 (Penal Code § 47). A misdemeanour of up to 300 fine units therefore means up to 2,400 euros, not the previous 1,200 euros.
| Violation | How it’s handled |
|---|---|
| Leave schedule, holiday pay, leave compensation at final settlement (§§ 54–71) | Civil dispute (labour dispute committee, court) |
| Working time limits, shortened working day (§§ 44–48, § 53) | Labour Inspectorate misdemeanour proceedings, up to 300 fine units |
| Fine unit value | 8 euros, since 1 Jan 2025 |
Check whether your dispute falls under the leave chapter — that determines whether you go to the labour dispute committee or wait for a Labour Inspectorate inspection.
How does Taito.ai simplify annual leave administration?
Taito.ai sets up each employee’s annual leave balance and keeps it maintained automatically, tracking the balance against its one-year expiry deadline.
Read more on Estonia’s employment law overview.
Sources
Citations in this article follow the pattern “Employment Contracts Act § 55” — that’s the section number of the act the claim comes from.
- Employment Contracts Act (TLS)
- Civil Service Act (ATS)
- Public Holidays Act
- Government Regulation No. 91 on paying average wage
- Penal Code (KarS)
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.
