Annual Leave in Germany: Urlaubsanspruch Explained

Germany's Leave System at a Glance

Germany's statutory annual leave is governed by the Bundesurlaubsgesetz (BUrlG), the Federal Vacation Act that has been in force since 1963. Under this law, every employee working a standard five-day week is entitled to a minimum of 20 paid vacation days per year. For those on a six-day work week, the minimum rises to 24 days.

That is the legal floor. In practice, very few German workers receive only 20 days. Collective bargaining agreements, known as Tarifvertraege, cover roughly half the workforce and typically guarantee 28 to 30 days of leave. Even in sectors without collective agreements, most employers voluntarily offer 25 to 30 days to remain competitive in a tight labour market.

On top of your annual leave, you receive paid public holidays. Germany has 9 nationwide public holidays, but individual Bundeslaender (states) add their own. Depending on where you work, you could have between 9 and 13 public holidays. A worker in Bavaria with 30 contractual leave days and 13 public holidays gets 43 paid days off per year before counting weekends. A worker in Berlin with 25 leave days and 9 public holidays gets 34.

Your Urlaubsanspruch (leave entitlement) can never fall below the statutory minimum of 20 days for a five-day week. Any contractual clause that reduces it below this floor is void under Section 13 of the BUrlG.

How Does Germany's Leave Entitlement Work?

The six-month waiting period

New employees must complete a Wartezeit (waiting period) of six months before their full annual leave entitlement becomes available. During this waiting period, you accrue leave proportionally at one-twelfth of your annual entitlement per full month of employment.

If you start a job on 1 January and are entitled to 30 days, you will have accrued 15 days by 1 July and can then access your full 30 days for the remainder of the year. In the second calendar year and beyond, your full entitlement is available from 1 January.

Part-time workers

Part-time employees receive a proportional entitlement based on how many days per week they work, not how many hours per day. The formula is:

Weekly working days x 4 = minimum annual leave (in days)

The key point is that part-time workers are entitled to the same amount of actual time off as full-time workers. Working three days a week with 12 days of leave gives you four full weeks off, which is equivalent to 20 days of leave for a five-day worker.

Minijob and marginal employment

Workers on Minijobs (earning up to 556 euros per month in 2026) are also entitled to paid annual leave. This is a common misconception. If you work two days per week on a Minijob, you are owed at least 8 vacation days. The employer must pay your normal daily rate for each vacation day.

Collective agreements matter

Germany's system of Tarifvertraege plays a major role in shaping actual leave entitlements. These collective bargaining agreements, negotiated between unions and employer associations, frequently exceed the statutory minimum by a significant margin. In the metal and electrical industry (IG Metall), the standard is 30 days. In the public sector (TVoeD), it is 30 days for most classifications. In retail and hospitality, it tends to be lower but still typically 26 to 28 days.

Even if you are not a union member, a Tarifvertrag applies to you if your employer is bound by it. Check your employment contract for a reference to the applicable collective agreement.

What Are the Carry-Over Rules?

Under the BUrlG, annual leave should be taken within the calendar year in which it accrues. If that is not possible for urgent operational or personal reasons, the leave can be carried over to the following year, but it must be used by 31 March.

Miss that deadline and your unused days expire. Or at least, that is how the law reads on paper. A landmark ruling from the European Court of Justice in November 2018 (the Kreuziger and Max-Planck cases) changed the practical reality significantly.

The employer's obligation to inform

The court ruled that leave cannot simply lapse because the calendar turned. Employers must actively and transparently inform each employee of their remaining leave balance and explicitly encourage them to take it. If the employer fails to do this, unused leave does not expire at all, even beyond the 31 March carry-over deadline.

This means the burden of proof has shifted. If your leave expires, your employer must demonstrate that they:

1. Informed you in writing about your remaining leave entitlement
2. Explicitly requested that you take the leave before the deadline
3. Warned you that the days would otherwise be lost

If the employer cannot prove all three steps, the leave carries forward indefinitely. German labour courts have enforced this consistently since the ruling.

Do not assume your unused leave has expired. If your employer never formally asked you to take it, those days may still be legally owed to you. This applies to the statutory minimum of 20 days; contractual leave above the minimum may be subject to different carry-over rules depending on your contract.

Illness during leave

If you fall ill during your annual leave and provide a medical certificate (Arbeitsunfaehigkeitsbescheinigung) from the first day of illness, those sick days are not counted against your leave balance. You get the vacation days back. This protection is codified in Section 9 of the BUrlG and is one of the more employee-friendly features of German leave law.

The Bundesland Factor: Why Does Your State Matter?

Germany has 9 public holidays that apply nationwide. Beyond those, each of the 16 Bundeslaender decides which additional holidays to observe. The difference between the most and least generous states is 4 full days, which is nearly an extra working week.

Bayern (Bavaria) leads with 13 public holidays, thanks to observing Heilige Drei Koenige (Epiphany), Fronleichnam (Corpus Christi), Mariae Himmelfahrt (Assumption of Mary), and Allerheiligen (All Saints' Day). Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Niedersachsen, and Schleswig-Holstein sit at the bottom with just 9 or 10.

Mariae Himmelfahrt (Assumption Day, 15 August) in Bavaria applies only in municipalities with a predominantly Catholic population, which covers roughly 80% of Bavarian communities. If you work in a municipality where it is not observed, your employer does not have to give you the day off.

For a broader look at how regional and state-level holidays create hidden leave opportunities, see our guide to regional and state holidays.

Public Holidays in Germany 2026

The 9 nationwide public holidays for 2026 are:

2026 is a reasonably strong year for bridge days (Brueckentage). Ascension Day falls on a Thursday, which is the classic German bridge-day setup: take one day of leave on the Friday and get four consecutive days off. New Year's Day is also a Thursday, offering the same opportunity at the start of the year. Labour Day lands on a Friday, giving you a three-day weekend for free.

In 2026, a German worker in Bavaria can turn 8 leave days into 36 consecutive days off between late April and early June by bridging around Labour Day, Ascension, and Whit Monday. Even outside Bavaria, the nationwide holidays in this window create some of the best bridge opportunities of the year.

For a full explanation of how this technique works, read our guide on how holiday bridges work.

How Does Germany Compare to Other Countries?

Germany's statutory minimum of 20 days looks modest in a European context. France mandates 25, Sweden guarantees 25, and Brazil offers 30. But the statutory number tells only part of the story. When you factor in what German workers actually receive through collective agreements and employer policies, plus the public holiday count, the picture shifts considerably.

A few things stand out. Germany's floor is lower than France's, but German workers on a Tarifvertrag typically end up in a similar range once contractual leave and state holidays are combined. The UK's 28-day entitlement sounds generous until you realise it includes bank holidays, leaving workers with 20 discretionary days in most cases, identical to Germany's statutory minimum.

The United States remains the outlier. Without any federal mandate for paid leave, American workers rely entirely on employer discretion, and the typical offering of 10 to 15 days falls well short of what German law guarantees as a bare minimum.

For a side-by-side breakdown of 20 countries, including carry-over rules and cultural norms, see our leave policy cheat sheet by country. We also publish country-specific annual leave guides for 2026 with optimised booking strategies tailored to each nation's holiday calendar.

Special Situations

Leaving a job mid-year

If you resign or are terminated partway through the year, you are entitled to proportional leave. For each full month of employment, you earn one-twelfth of your annual entitlement. If you leave before being able to take your accrued leave, your employer must pay it out (Urlaubsabgeltung). This is one of the only situations in which German law allows leave to be converted to cash.

Parental leave and leave entitlement

During Elternzeit (parental leave), your employer may reduce your annual leave proportionally for each full calendar month of parental leave. However, this reduction is not automatic. The employer must declare the reduction explicitly. If they do not, your full leave entitlement remains intact.

Severely disabled workers

Employees with a recognised severe disability (Schwerbehinderung, a degree of disability of at least 50) are entitled to 5 additional days of paid leave per year on top of their standard entitlement. This applies regardless of whether the entitlement comes from the BUrlG or a collective agreement.

Make Every Day Count

Germany's combination of solid statutory protections, widespread collective agreements, and state-level public holidays gives most workers a generous time-off package. But having 30 days on paper does not guarantee a good year of breaks. The placement of those days matters as much as the quantity.

A single Brueckentag (bridge day) after Ascension Thursday creates a four-day weekend. Three well-chosen days around the Easter-to-Whit-Monday corridor can produce a break twice as long as the leave you spend. The difference between using your Urlaubsanspruch strategically and booking randomly can easily amount to an extra week of continuous time off.

Run your specific setup through the optimizer. Select your Bundesland, enter your remaining leave days, mark any dates already committed, and let the algorithm identify your highest-value booking windows for the rest of 2026.

Try the free optimizer at leavewise.co