Annual leave in South Africa: how it builds up

The minimum

Section 20 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act gives an employee at least 21 consecutive days of annual leave on full pay in each annual leave cycle. The cycle is the 12 months from the day they started, and every 12 months after that.

Twenty-one consecutive days is three calendar weeks. For someone who works a five-day week, that is 15 working days; for a six-day week, 18. Most businesses track leave in working days for exactly this reason.

The Act also allows an employer and employee to agree on leave earned as the year goes: one day of leave for every 17 days worked, or one hour for every 17 hours worked. Contracts can give more than the minimum, never less.

Earning it month by month

Many businesses let leave build up through the year: 15 days divided by 12 months is 1.25 days a month. After four months, an employee on a five-day week has earned 5 days. Others give the full year's leave on the first day of the cycle. Either works, as long as your policy says which and you apply it the same way to everyone on the same terms.

Days a year	Earned a month	After six months
15 (five-day week)	1.25	7.5
18 (six-day week)	1.5	9
21 (by contract)	1.75	10.5

Public holidays during leave

When a public holiday falls on a day the employee would normally work, during their annual leave, they get an extra day of paid leave. In practice: leave never counts public holidays or days the person would not have worked anyway.

When leave must be taken

The employer must grant the leave no later than six months after the end of the cycle in which it was earned. Leave is taken at a time agreed between employer and employee, or, without an agreement, at a time the employer decides. That second rule is what makes a year-end shutdown possible.

An employer may not pay an employee instead of granting leave, except when employment ends. On termination, the employee is paid for leave they earned and did not take.

Leave that is not taken

The Act does not say what happens to leave left over after the six months. Businesses deal with it through policy: some let it carry over with a limit, some let carried days expire after a set time. If your policy lets leave expire, make sure people had a real chance to take it and were told in writing beforehand, and take advice before you rely on it.

How AwayDesk handles it

You choose the days per year, whether they are earned monthly or given at the start of the leave year, and whether unused days carry over, how many, and when they expire. Each employee's leave year runs from their own start date. Weekends and public holidays never come off a balance, and employees are told three months and one month before carried days expire, with their acknowledgement recorded.

General information, not legal advice. Source: Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, sections 20 and 40. Check the Act and your contracts, or ask a labour adviser.