Are You Actually Getting Paid to Go on Holiday?
Whether or not you get paid for going on holiday depends on the type of 'holiday' you are referring to, the law that applies to you, and any additional provisions in your contract or collective agreement.
3 September 2026
You have booked the flight, switched on your out-of-office reply and shut the laptop. But will you be paid while you are away? The answer depends on which kind of “holiday” you mean, which law covers you and what your contract or collective agreement adds to the statutory floor.
That distinction matters. A public holiday can be:
- a paid day off
- an ordinary working day
- a day taken from your annual leave balance
- a shift paid at a premium.
The date in the calendar is only the beginning of the calculation.
One word, three different rights
| TERM | WHAT IT MEANS | THE PAY QUESTION |
|---|---|---|
| Annual leave | An accrued yearly rest entitlement, usually requested or scheduled by the worker and employer. | Does pay continue during the leave, and which parts of normal earnings count? |
| Public or national holiday | A date designated by national, regional or local law. Coverage can depend on the worker’s schedule or sector. | Must the worker be off? If so, is the day paid? What happens if the worker works? |
| Bank holiday | A mainly British and Irish label with historical banking roots; not a universal category of labour law. | In the UK, the label does not create a separate right to paid leave; the day may be counted inside annual leave. |
The rule is simple: the calendar names the day. Labour law, a collective agreement and the employment contract decide what happens to pay.
What the international benchmark actually says
The International Labour Organisation’s Holidays with Pay Convention (Revised), 1970 (No. 132) sets a benchmark of at least three working weeks of paid annual leave after one year of service. During that leave, a covered worker should receive at least normal or average remuneration. Public and customary holidays are not supposed to be counted inside that minimum.
But the Convention is not a single worldwide payroll law. It currently has 39 ratifications, and national coverage, formulas and enforcement differ. Many non-ratifying countries nevertheless provide equal or stronger rights in domestic law. The ILO’s 2026 global policy brief therefore looks beyond the headline number of days to coverage, qualifying periods, remuneration, scheduling, carry-over and the ability to take leave in practice.
WageIndicator and the Centre for Labour Research make the scale of the variation visible. In their Labour Rights Index 2024 annual-leave map, 91 of 145 countries provide more than three working weeks, 11 provide exactly three weeks, 41 provide less and two have no statutory provision. Their public-holiday map finds some statutory provision for paid public holidays in 141 of 145 countries. Near-universal provision, however, is not uniform protection.
Figure 1 - Statutory annual leave and paid-public-holiday provision across 145 countries.
From the global picture to 11 legal systems
The Labour Rights Index provides the global picture across 145 countries. To examine how these rights translate into actual pay, the remainder of this article focuses on 11 selected legal systems: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Kenya, Mozambique, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States at federal level.
These systems were selected to illustrate different regional and legal approaches to annual leave, paid public holidays and compensation for working on a public holiday. The comparison is illustrative and is not intended to be statistically representative of all 145 countries covered by the Labour Rights Index.
How to read the comparison
Before comparing the country results, separate pay maintained during an absence from the total rate paid for working on the day. This article uses the following shorthand:
| PAYROLL WORDING | WHAT IT USUALLY MEANS |
| Paid day off at 100% | No work; pay is maintained at the applicable legal rate. |
| Time-and-a-half / 150% | Work is paid at 1.5 times the stated rate. |
| Double time / 200% | Work is paid at twice the stated rate. |
| 100% premium | Usually 100% normal pay + 100% extra = 200% total. |
| 8% holiday allowance | Usually an annual allowance on earnings, not 108% for each leave day. |
An 11-country snapshot
The table below shows the general statutory floor for a standard private-sector employee. “100%” always refers to the pay base defined by that country-not necessarily every allowance, bonus or variable payment. Sector, status, tenure, territory, work pattern, collective agreement and contract can change the result.
| COUNTRY | STATUTORY ANNUAL LEAVE & PAY | PUBLIC HOLIDAY NOT WORKED | PUBLIC HOLIDAY WORKED |
| United Kingdom | 5.6 weeks (28 days for a five-day worker). One week’s pay per week: four weeks at “normal” pay and 1.6 weeks at “basic” pay for regular-hours workers. Broadly 100%, but the formula differs by leave tranche. | No separate right. Bank/public holidays may be worked or included within the 5.6 weeks; 0% as a standalone statutory bank-holiday entitlement. | No statutory bank-holiday premium. Contract or collective agreement decides. |
| United States (federal floor) | No federally mandated paid annual vacation for private-sector workers: 0 days and 0% federally required vacation pay. | No federal requirement to close, grant time off or pay for a federal holiday: 0% federal floor. | No premium merely because it is a holiday. Federal overtime can apply after 40 hours in the workweek. |
| Netherlands | Four times weekly hours (usually 20 days on a five-day week), with wages continuing at 100%. Separately, holiday allowance is normally at least 8% of gross annual wages. | No statutory right to a public-holiday day off and no national pay percentage. The CAO or contract decides. | No universal statutory premium; CAO or contract determines supplements or substitute time. |
| Germany | Four weeks: 24 working days on the legal six-day denominator, usually 20 days on a five-day week. Pay is the prior 13-week average, excluding extra overtime earnings-broadly 100% of average regular earnings. | If scheduled work is lost solely because of a statutory holiday: 100% of what the employee would have earned. | No general statutory premium. Work restrictions, substitute-rest rules and sector exceptions apply; CBA or contract may add pay. |
| France | Five weeks. Holiday pay is the more favourable of 10% of reference-period gross remuneration or salary maintenance-at least 100% of the remuneration that would otherwise have been earned. | 1 May is universally paid at 100%, subject to essential activities. For other non-working public holidays, salary maintenance generally applies after three months’ service. | 1 May: 200% total. Other holidays: no general statutory premium unless an agreement provides more. |
| Brazil | Up to 30 calendar days after the accrual year, reduced by specified unjustified absences. Ordinary remuneration plus one-third: 133.33% for the corresponding full leave period. | Civil and religious holidays are generally paid rest days at 100% of normal daily remuneration. | 200% total unless another compensatory day off is granted. |
| Mozambique | 12 paid calendar days in the first year of effective work; 30 in later years. The Act calls the leave paid but does not state a separate percentage; effectively ordinary remuneration, without a statutory leave bonus stated. | National holidays suspend work nationwide, subject to listed continuous-service exceptions. The Act does not state one clean pay percentage for every pay arrangement. | Normal remuneration + a 100% premium = 200% total, plus compensatory rest under the general rule. |
| South Africa | 21 consecutive days per annual cycle-usually 15 working days for a five-day worker-at full remuneration: 100%. | If it falls on an ordinary working day: ordinary pay, 100%. Work requires agreement. | If ordinarily a workday: at least 200% of the ordinary daily wage, subject to the Act’s calculation rule. |
| Kenya | At least 21 working days with full pay after 12 months: 100% full pay. | Holidays covered by the applicable Wage Order are with full pay: 100%. | Hours worked on a public holiday attract twice the normal hourly rate under the General Order. Sectoral rules can vary. |
| Australia | Four weeks, or five for qualifying shiftworkers, at 100% of base pay for ordinary hours. The national floor excludes bonuses, loadings, allowances, overtime and penalties; awards may add leave loading. | If ordinary hours were scheduled: 100% of base pay for those hours. Casuals are generally excluded. | No universal national premium percentage. The award, enterprise agreement or contract may provide penalty rates or extra leave. |
| New Zealand | Four weeks after 12 months. Pay is the greater of ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings: at least 100% of the applicable statutory measure. | If it would otherwise be a working day: 100% of relevant or average daily pay. | At least 150% for hours worked, plus a paid alternative holiday when it was otherwise a working day, subject to exceptions. |
Reading the table: 0% means no statutory national baseline-not that no employee is paid. “No universal premium” means an award, CAO/CBA, contract, sectoral rule or local law may still create one.
So, what percentage do you actually receive?
1.When you take statutory annual leave
The most useful global shorthand is 100% of the legally defined normal, ordinary, base or average pay measure. That does not necessarily mean 100% of every item on the latest payslip. One country may include regular commission and overtime; another may use only base pay; another may average a reference period. Brazil goes further, adding a constitutional one-third to ordinary vacation remuneration-133.33% for the corresponding leave period.
Figure 2 - Ten of the 11 systems compared provide statutory paid annual leave.
2. When you stay home on a public holiday
Where the law makes the holiday a paid day off and it falls on a day the employee would ordinarily work, the common result is 100% of the relevant daily pay measure. But there are important exceptions. UK and Dutch law do not create a separate universal right to a paid day off merely because the calendar calls it a bank or public holiday. US federal law creates no paid-holiday floor for private-sector employees.
Figure 3 - A public holiday does not automatically create a standalone paid day off.
3. When you work on the public holiday
This is a different question. A worker may receive ordinary pay only, time-and-a-half, double time, a substitute day, or a combination. “A 100% premium” means the normal 100% plus another 100%-200% total. Always ask whether a quoted percentage is the total rate or the extra premium.
Figure 4 - Public-holiday work falls into four statutory categories in the 11-system comparison.
| PAYROLL WORDING | WHAT IT USUALLY MEANS |
| Paid day off at 100% | No work; pay is maintained at the applicable legal rate. |
| Time-and-a-half / 150% | Work is paid at 1.5 times the stated rate. |
| Double time / 200% | Work is paid at twice the stated rate. |
| 100% premium | Usually 100% normal pay + 100% extra = 200% total. |
| 8% holiday allowance | Usually an annual allowance on earnings, not 108% for each leave day. |
What the comparison reveals
- Paid annual leave is close to universal, but not universal. The US federal private-sector floor remains zero, while Brazil’s constitutional bonus lifts vacation remuneration to 133.33% for the corresponding leave period.
- An official holiday is not automatically a paid day off. The UK and Netherlands are clear examples: the contract or collective agreement may be decisive even when the date appears on an official calendar.
- “100%” hides different pay bases. South Africa refers to full remuneration, Australia’s national floor uses base pay for ordinary hours, and New Zealand chooses the higher of two statutory earnings measures.
- Working the day is a separate calculation. France pays double for work on 1 May; South Africa, Brazil, Mozambique and Kenya use double-pay rules in the situations summarised above; New Zealand combines at least time-and-a-half with an alternative holiday when the day would otherwise be worked.
- Collective bargaining can change the practical answer. A sectoral agreement may add premium pay, leave loading, substitute days or longer annual leave-even where national law is silent.
What the comparison reveals
- Paid annual leave is close to universal, but not universal. The US federal private-sector floor remains zero, while Brazil’s constitutional bonus lifts vacation remuneration to 133.33% for the corresponding leave period.
- An official holiday is not automatically a paid day off. The UK and Netherlands are clear examples: the contract or collective agreement may be decisive even when the date appears on an official calendar.
- “100%” hides different pay bases. South Africa refers to full remuneration, Australia’s national floor uses base pay for ordinary hours, and New Zealand chooses the higher of two statutory earnings measures.
- Working the day is a separate calculation. France pays double for work on 1 May; South Africa, Brazil, Mozambique and Kenya use double-pay rules in the situations summarised above; New Zealand combines at least time-and-a-half with an alternative holiday when the day would otherwise be worked.
- Collective bargaining can change the practical answer. A sectoral agreement may add premium pay, leave loading, substitute days or longer annual leave-even where national law is silent.
Five checks before you book the flight
- Identify the right category. Is the day annual leave, a public holiday, a bank holiday or contractual time off?
- Check whether it is an ordinary working day for you. Many public-holiday protections only apply when you would normally have worked.
- Find the applicable pay base. Look for normal, average, ordinary, full or base pay-and whether commission, overtime, allowances and bonuses are included.
- Separate pay for absence from pay for work. A paid day off at 100% is not the same as a 100% premium for working.
- Read the CBA and contract after the statute. The law is often only the floor, and in some countries the agreement determines whether the public holiday is off at all.
Make the law usable
Holiday pay should not require guesswork. Before booking, check WageIndicator’s Working Time Tool and country labour-law pages, then compare the statutory floor with your employment contract and any collective agreement. WageIndicator’s Collective Agreement Database helps make that second layer searchable rather than invisible.
The short answer to the title question is therefore: probably-but not simply because the day is called a holiday. You are paid when the applicable rule protects the absence, defines the pay base and covers your employment situation. The law’s label starts the question; a transparent pay calculation finishes it.
Practical takeaway
Ask three separate questions: May I be off? Is the time off paid? If I work, is there a premium or substitute day?
References:
- United Kingdom: Holiday Entitlement
- United States: Holiday Pay
- The Netherlands: Holiday Entitlement
- Germany: The Minimum Annual Leave Act for Employees (Federal Annual Leave Act)
- France: Working hours, pay, profit-sharing, employee share schemes and employee savings schemes
- Brazil: DECRETO-LEI Nº 5.452, DE 1º DE MAIO DE 1943
- Mozambique: Lei n.º 13/2023
- South Africa: Basic Conditions of Employment Act [No. 75 of 1997]
- Kenya: Employment Act Cap. 226
- Australia: Payment for annual leave
- New Zealand: Public holiday pay
Written by:
Rogério Marques Benedito Junior
Data & Communications Specialist - Lusophone Africa