Icelandic holiday entitlement calculator (orlof)

How orlof in Iceland is calculated

*"Orlof skal vera tveir dagar fyrir hvern unninn mánuð á síðasta orlofsári og reiknast hálfur mánuður eða meira heill mánuður en skemmri tími telst ekki með."* Two days a month, twelve months, **24 days** — and a part month rounds at the half, so fifteen days of a month earns the full two days and fourteen earns nothing.

**The unit is the most precisely drawn in this comparison.** *"Sunnudagar og aðrir helgidagar teljast ekki orlofsdagar né heldur fyrstu fimm laugardagar í orlofi."* Sundays and public holidays never count. Nor do the **first five Saturdays** of the leave. From the sixth Saturday onward, they do. Germany and Norway charge you for every Saturday; Sweden charges for none; Iceland drew the line in the middle on purpose.

**And the two numbers fit together exactly.** Five free Saturdays cover five weeks of Monday-to-Friday leave, which is 25 days. The maximum annual entitlement is 24. So the sixth-Saturday rule can never bite a five-day employee, and Iceland becomes the one country here whose published figure and real figure are the same number — not because the unit is simple, but because the statute sized its exception to cover the entitlement it grants.

**A third rounding direction.** Sweden, Poland and Finland all round a part **day** up. Iceland rounds a part **month**, and at the half. That is a cliff inside the accrual rather than a tidy-up at the end of it, and it is the only half-up rule in this family.

**Two rules on timing.** Article 4 requires the leave to be taken in one block between 2 May and 15 September, and lets collective agreements shorten the summer leave to at least 14 days. The leave year itself runs 1 May to 30 April — one more answer to “which year?” in a family that already has five.