# Urlaubsanspruch Berechnen 2026 — German Statutory Leave

Source page: https://valem.run/calculators/germany/holiday-entitlement

German law gives at least 24 Werktage of paid leave a year, but § 3(2) BUrlG counts a Werktag as any day that is not a Sunday or a public holiday — a six-day week — so an employee working the usual five days is entitled to 20 days.

**Tax year:** 2026

## How it is calculated

§ 3 Bundesurlaubsgesetz: *"Der Urlaub beträgt jährlich mindestens 24 Werktage."* Twenty-four. But the next subsection decides what that means: *"Als Werktage gelten alle Kalendertage, die nicht Sonn- oder gesetzliche Feiertage sind."* Saturday is a Werktag. The statutory figure is therefore measured on a **six-day** week, and 24 ÷ 6 is four weeks.

**So a five-day employee is entitled to 20 days, not 24.** "Germany gives 24 days of holiday" is true of the statute and false of almost every employee who reads it, which makes it the most misquoted figure in this family. Four weeks is also exactly the floor the EU Working Time Directive sets, which is the sanity check that the five-day reading is the right one: the German minimum meets the European minimum and does not exceed it.

Two things this page deliberately does not do. It does not add your **contractual** leave — many German contracts and most collective agreements give 25 to 30 days, and that is a fact about your contract rather than about the law. And it does not net off public holidays: § 3(2) puts them outside the Werktage the 24 is counted in, so they cannot be set against your entitlement. That is the opposite of the UK position, where an employer may count bank holidays towards the statutory minimum.

## Worked example

With Days you work per week of 5, this model computes Days Entitled of 20.

## Inputs

| Name | Label | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `leaveYearStart` | Leave year starts (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `leaveYearEnd` | Leave year ends (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `workStart` | First day worked in it (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `workEnd` | Last day worked in it (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `daysPerWeek` | Days you work per week | number |
| `daysTaken` | Days already taken | number |

## Sources

- [§ 3 BUrlG — Dauer des Urlaubs (24 Werktage; Werktag = any day that is not a Sunday or a public holiday)](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/burlg/__3.html) (checked 2026-10-09)

## What this page claims

The Valem engine reproduces this model's formula through 6 self-test cases. That shows internal consistency, not that the formula matches current law; the cited sources are the evidence for that. Estimate, not tax advice.

## For agents

- Model manifest (formula, constants, test vectors): https://valem.run/calculators/germany/holiday-entitlement.json
- Compute by URL: https://valem.run/calculators/germany/holiday-entitlement.json
- MCP: https://valem.run/mcp/calculators (call `calculate` with calculator `germany/holiday-entitlement`)