annual leave

noun · Urlaub

The statutory minimum is twenty-four working days a year, and because Saturday counts as a working day that means four weeks rather than twenty-four days off in a five-day week. Leave no longer simply lapses at the year end: the employer must have told the employee about the entitlement and the expiry, or it carries over.

Which translation, when

vierundzwanzig Werktagethe minimum: the statutory entitlement runs to twenty-four Werktage a year and the Werktag includes Saturday, so the figure means four weeks of absence and converts to twenty days in a five-day week; contracts routinely grant more, and the excess above the statutory minimum can be shaped more freely than the statutory core.

Verfall nach Hinweisthe expiry rule: leave is in principle tied to the calendar year with a limited carry-over, but the courts, following the Court of Justice, hold that it lapses only where the employer has informed the employee of the specific entitlement and of the impending expiry and given him the chance to take it, so untaken leave from earlier years survives in many files and is inherited or paid out on termination.

Abgeltung und Krankheitthe edges: payment instead of leave is possible only where the employment relationship ends, since the statutory purpose is rest rather than money, and the Federal Labour Court held in 2025 that even a settlement recorded in court cannot buy out the statutory minimum leave while the relationship continues, which is the opposite of the position on the minimum wage; sickness during leave does not consume it where a medical certificate is produced, and long-term sick employees keep accrued leave for a limited period rather than indefinitely.

Why

Annual leave translates as Urlaub, and the arithmetic is the first trap. The statutory minimum is twenty-four working days a year, but the German Werktag includes Saturday, so the entitlement means four weeks of absence and corresponds to twenty days in the ordinary five-day week; a translation that reports twenty-four days off for a Monday-to-Friday worker overstates the statutory floor by a fifth. Contracts and collective agreements commonly grant considerably more, and the part above the statutory minimum can be arranged more freely, which is why German leave clauses often distinguish the two layers expressly. The second and more consequential point concerns expiry. German law ties leave to the calendar year and allows carry-over only in defined circumstances, and for decades untaken leave simply lapsed. That is no longer so. Following the case law of the Court of Justice, the Federal Labour Court holds that leave lapses only where the employer has told the employee, clearly and in good time, how much leave he has and that it will expire if not taken, and has actually enabled him to take it. Where that duty was not discharged, entitlements accumulate across years, survive into the following ones and fall to be paid out when the relationship ends, which turns old records into a real liability. Around this sit the familiar edges: payment instead of leave only on termination, since the purpose is recovery and not remuneration; days of certified sickness during leave are not counted against it; and employees unable to work for long periods keep accrued leave for a limited time rather than for ever.

Typical mistakes

The statutory minimum counts Werktage including Saturday, so reporting twenty-four days off in a five-day week overstates the entitlement.
Leave lapses only where the employer informed the employee of the entitlement and the expiry, so old untaken leave may still exist.
Payment instead of leave is possible only when the employment relationship ends, so buying out leave during employment does not discharge the entitlement.

What matters

Advising on a German leave balance at termination: the calculation should convert the statutory Werktage to the working pattern, ask whether the employer ever gave the notices the case law requires, and treat contractual leave above the minimum separately.

Authority

§ 3 BUrlG
§ 7 BUrlG

What the machine misses

Automatic output for annual leave gives Jahresurlaub or Ferien, the second a school word, and the statutory concept is der Urlaub measured in Werktagen including Saturday; the loose rendering also carries the old assumption that untaken leave lapses at the year end, which no longer holds where the employer failed to give notice of the expiry.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

annual leave	der Urlaub
twenty-four working days	vierundzwanzig Werktage
the leave expires	der Urlaubsanspruch verfällt
payment in lieu of leave	die Urlaubsabgeltung