Holiday breaks, holiday in advance and carried over holidays from the previous holiday period. If your company offers several different types of holidays, you should pay attention to whether employees are taking their holidays in the correct order.
As an employee covered by the Holiday Act, you are not subject to any special rules regarding the order in which accrued holiday must be taken, other than that carried-over holiday must be taken before other holiday, cf. sections 21 and 22. Thus, you must first take all the holiday you have earned in 2022 before you take holiday earned in 2023, etc. This means that the order will look like this:
- Holiday carried over from the previous holiday period
- Holidays from the current holiday year
- Holiday breaks
- Holidays in advance
Depending on your collective agreement or the local agreements you are employed under, there may be some special rules and conditions regarding holiday order that you should be aware of. For example, the 6th holiday week (if you have one) and holiday breaks or similar may have a specific expiry date, which may affect the sequence. In these cases, you should make sure to take the type of holiday that expires first so that nothing is wasted.
Are you employed in a municipal or regional service?
Employees in municipal and regional service must take paid holidays before unpaid holidays, and holidays that are earned first are taken first. Therefore, transferred holidays must also be taken before other holidays. At the same time, all accrued paid holiday from a previous employer must be taken before paid holiday with the current employer. However, the employer can accept that the employee takes paid holiday earned with the current employer before holiday earned with previous employers. However, the employer cannot require an employee to take paid holiday with the current employer before holiday earned with the previous employer.
Are you a private employee?
Private employees are generally also subject to the provisions of the Danish Holiday Act regarding the order of holidays, but in some cases the specific workplace has special rules for this. Consult your employment contract or the applicable collective labour agreement if you are unsure about the rules.
Intempus keeps track of the sequence
Do you want to ensure that your company complies with the rules on holiday order? Then you should consider a digital system like Intempus, which can be set up to automatically ensure that employees' holidays are used in the order that follows the correct collective or local agreement.
Whether you prefer to take the oldest holiday first and then new holidays and holidays in advance, or if your collective agreement contains specific rules for holiday order, we can tailor a setup to suit your needs. It is also possible to set up different solutions if employees are employed under different collective agreements or rules. Employees simply register their holiday days in the Intempus app, and the system automatically ensures that holiday is deducted from the desired holiday balance. This ensures that holidays are taken correctly for all employees and saves you a lot of time and hassle.
If you're curious about how we can make it easy for you to keep track of holidays and all the other administrative tasks, contact us for a no-obligation demo:
You can also read more about the rules in the new Holiday Act here.
Sources:
Guidance from Forhandlingsfællesskabet and KL (Local Government Association)
Guidance from the Danish Bargaining Association and RLTN (Regionernes Lønnings- og Takstnævn).
