How to use
Pick a **country** (KR / JP / US / EU) and enter your **start date (입사일 / 入社日)** plus the **as-of date** for which you want the entitlement (default is today). For Japan, also enter your **attendance rate (出勤率)** — the law requires ≥80% attendance to earn paid leave. The tool computes your current accrued day count, the next refresh date (anniversary or 6-month milestone depending on country), and the legal basis with a one-line citation.
The four jurisdictions use **fundamentally different accrual models**. **Korea (근로기준법 §60)**: under 1 year tenure earns **1 day per full month worked, capped at 11**; from year 1+ tenure earns **15 days base, +1 every 2 years past year 1, capped at 25 from year 21+**. **Japan (労働基準法 §39)**: nothing for the first 6 months, then **10 days** with ≥80% attendance, increasing each subsequent year (11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20) and capping at 20 from year 6.5+. **United States**: **no federal minimum** — the only OECD country with zero statutory paid leave; companies set their own policies (typical: 10-15 days for new hires, increasing with tenure). **EU (Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC)**: minimum **20 working days (4 weeks)** with no tenure requirement; individual member states often grant more (Germany 24+, France 25+, Italy 26+, but the directive floor is 20).
Examples
Korean new hire — first year accrual
Input
country: Korea (KR)
start date: 2026-02-01
as-of: 2026-08-15
Output
Accrued: 6 days
Reason: under-1-year tenure earns 1 day per completed month
Months completed: Feb→Aug = 6 months → 6 days
Next refresh: 2026-09-01 (next month = 7 days)
Cap: 11 days at month 11 (2027-01-01)
After 1-year anniversary 2027-02-01: jumps to 15 days base
Legal basis: 근로기준법 §60①, §60②
Korea's under-1-year accrual was added in **2017 (effective 2018-05-29)** as a major worker-friendly reform. Before this, employees with under 1 year tenure had no statutory paid leave at all — the system started fresh with 15 days at the 1-year anniversary. The reform was politically charged because it eliminated the **연차 선사용** practice where employers would advance the year-1 leave allotment to the under-1-year period as a borrowing arrangement. Some employers tried to maintain the old practice by contract, but courts have generally ruled the statutory accrual is non-waivable. **The under-1-year and the year-1 leave are now separate stocks** — an employee who joins on Jan 1 has up to 11 days for the first year + 15 days starting the 1-year anniversary, both separately countable.
Japanese employee at 5-year mark with full attendance
Input
country: Japan (JP)
start date: 2021-04-01
as-of: 2026-04-01 (5-year anniversary)
attendance: 100% (over the qualifying year)
Output
Accrued: 18 days
Reason: 5 years tenure → 4.5 years past first 6-month grant
Year-of-tenure index 5 in table [10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20] → 18
Next refresh: 2027-04-01 → 20 days
Cap reached: 2028-04-01 onward, capped at 20
Legal basis: 労働基準法 §39, 同則 第24条の3
Japan's schedule is **slower in early years but eventually catches up** to Korea. A 5-year Japanese employee has 18 days vs Korea's 17 days (15 base + 1 from year 3 + 1 from year 5 = 17); by year 10 Korea hits 20 days while Japan also has 20 days. The big asymmetry is **year 0–6 months**: Japan grants ZERO days, while Korea's "1 day per month" rule provides up to 11. The 6-month requirement was relaxed in **2019** to allow proportional accrual during the first 6 months as part of the 働き方改革 (Work Style Reform), but the headline 10-day grant still kicks in only at the 6-month mark. **Attendance below 80%** zeros out the leave grant entirely — even at 79.9% attendance, a Japanese employee accrues 0 days that year, which has been controversial during long-term illness or caregiving periods (proposed reforms have not yet passed).
US employee — no federal entitlement, employer policy varies
Input
country: United States (US)
start date: 2024-01-15
as-of: 2026-05-17
employer: none specified
Output
Accrued: 0–25 days (range)
Reason: no federal minimum — employer policy determines exact entitlement
Typical ranges:
- 0 days: ~25% of US workers (mostly low-wage hourly/gig)
- 10 days: ~40% of US workers (private-sector "vacation" baseline)
- 15–20 days: ~25% (knowledge workers at mid-large companies)
- 20–30+ days: ~10% (senior knowledge workers / unionized / public sector)
Legal basis: NONE federally — see employer handbookThe US is the **only OECD country with no federal mandate for paid vacation**, paid sick leave, or paid parental leave. State-level minimums exist in **a few jurisdictions**: California requires 24 hours / 3 days of paid sick leave per year, Oregon and Colorado have similar laws, but no US state requires *vacation* time. The typical US pattern is **employer-set "PTO" (Paid Time Off)** that combines vacation and sick leave into a single bucket (e.g. "15 days PTO + 3 days sick"). The OECD comparison: while Korea and Japan have 10-25 statutory days plus 10-15 public holidays = ~25-40 total paid non-working days, the typical US private-sector worker has 10-15 PTO + 10 federal/private holidays = 20-25 days, putting the US at the bottom of OECD rankings. This tool returns a *range* for US queries because the entitlement is unknowable without the specific employer policy.
FAQ
What happens to unused leave at year-end?
Three patterns globally. **Use-it-or-lose-it (Korean default)**: unused leave from the entitlement year **expires unless the employer fails to provide proper notice (연차 사용촉진제)**; if the employer documented their notice obligations and the employee still did not use it, the leave is forfeit with no cash compensation owed. **Carry-over (Japanese, German default)**: unused leave **carries to the next year** up to a cap (Japan: 2-year statute of limitations, so leave expires 2 years after grant; Germany: carry to March 31 of the next year by default with collective-agreement exceptions). **Cash-out (US default for most employers)**: unused PTO **must be paid out at termination** in many states (California, Massachusetts) and is often paid out at year-end as a "use or cash" policy. Korea has a specific cash-payment rule when employees are *forced* to skip vacation: 연차수당 = unused days × average daily wage. This calculator computes accrual only; carry-over and expiration are separate considerations governed by your individual jurisdiction and collective agreements.
How does the Korean 연차 사용촉진제 work?
**연차 사용촉진제 (annual leave use-encouragement system)** is a Korean-specific employer protection: by following a prescribed notice-and-confirmation process, the employer can **eliminate the obligation to pay 연차수당 (annual-leave compensation pay)** for unused leave at year-end. The process: (1) **6 months before the year-end expiration**, the employer must give written notice listing each employee's remaining unused leave and asking them to schedule it; (2) if the employee does not schedule within 10 days, the employer must by **2 months before expiration** assign specific dates to use the leave; (3) if the employee still does not use it, the leave expires and no 연차수당 is owed. Without this two-step process, the employer is liable for cash payment of unused days. The 연차 사용촉진제 was introduced as part of the 2003-2004 labor-law reforms, intended to encourage actual vacation-taking rather than monetization. Many smaller Korean employers skip the formal procedure and just pay 연차수당; mid-large employers follow the procedure rigorously to manage costs.
Why does Japan have a 6-month waiting period for paid leave?
The 6-month rule is in **労働基準法 §39** as written in 1947 and reflects the post-war economic reality of high turnover and probationary periods being industry-standard. The rule says: an employee earns 10 days of paid leave **after 6 continuous months of employment AND ≥80% attendance during that period**. Both conditions must be met. The intent at the time was to ensure leave was a reward for sustained employment relationship rather than a benefit granted on day 1. The rule has been criticized for decades as harsh by international standards — every other major economy grants pro-rata leave from day 1 — but successive 働き方改革 (Work Style Reform) packages have only marginally relaxed it. The 2019 reform allows employers to **voluntarily grant pro-rata leave during the first 6 months** but does not mandate it. The 80% attendance requirement is the more controversial half: long-term illness, parental leave, caregiving leave, and bereavement leave all count as "absences" that can drop attendance below 80%, zeroing out the entire year's leave grant — a perverse incentive structure that disadvantages workers facing life events. Reform proposals to fix this have circulated since 2015 without enactment.
What about sick leave — is that separate from annual leave?
Almost always separate, with different rules. **Korea**: there is **no statutory paid sick leave**. Sick days come out of your 연차 entitlement unless your employer's policy provides additional 병가, which most do for tenured employees but is not legally required. Long-term illness can trigger 상병수당 (sickness benefit) from 건강보험 starting 2026, but that is separate from employer paid leave. **Japan**: also **no statutory paid sick leave**; employees use 有給休暇 for sick days, or apply for **傷病手当金** (sickness benefit ~⅔ of salary) from 健康保険 for absences exceeding 3 days. **EU**: most member states have **separate statutory paid sick leave** with specific notification rules — Germany 6 weeks at full pay, France 60% from day 4, Sweden 80% from day 2; details vary widely. **US**: federal **FMLA** provides only **unpaid sick leave** up to 12 weeks for serious conditions. Some states (California, Oregon, Colorado) require 24-40 hours of paid sick leave per year separately from vacation. This tool computes only annual leave; for sick-leave entitlement, check your jurisdiction's separate statute.
How do part-time and contract workers accrue leave?
All four jurisdictions provide **pro-rata accrual based on hours worked**, but the proration formulas differ. **Korea**: part-time workers accrue leave proportional to a full-time-equivalent baseline — a 0.5 FTE employee accrues 7.5 days at year-1 (half of 15) instead of 15. The 1-day-per-month rule for under-1-year tenure also pro-rates. **Japan**: an explicit 比例付与 (proportional grant) schedule exists for workers averaging fewer than 30 hours/week: a chart in 労働基準法施行規則 §24 maps weekly hours and tenure to leave days (e.g. a worker at 4 days/week for 6 months gets 7 days instead of the full-time 10). **EU**: all directives apply pro-rata to part-time workers under the **Part-time Work Directive 97/81/EC**. **US**: depends entirely on the employer — many US employers provide PTO only to "regular" full-time employees, leaving part-timers and contractors with zero entitlement. The legal classification matters: a "1099 contractor" in the US gets no employee benefits at all, while a "W-2 part-time" employee should get pro-rata under employer policy.
Why are US leave standards so different from the rest of the OECD?
The US never enacted federal vacation legislation because **organized labor in the post-war US prioritized other gains** (wages, health insurance, pensions) and historically negotiated paid vacation through collective bargaining rather than seeking statutory mandates. Once health insurance became employer-tied (1940s-50s wartime wage controls + post-war tax code) and pension systems followed, vacation became a private-employer "perk" rather than a public entitlement. **Three historical factors compounded**: (1) the **anti-statism strand of American political culture** that resists federal employment mandates (state-by-state experimentation is the norm); (2) the **2-party political alignment** with one party broadly opposed to expanding labor regulation; (3) the **2-tier labor market** where unionized employees historically got generous vacation but the non-union private sector lagged. Periodic proposals — most recently the **Healthy Families Act** and **Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act** — have stalled in Congress. The result is that the US is an outlier among rich democracies on leave standards: France/Germany/Italy/UK all have ≥20 statutory days, Korea/Japan have 10-25, while the US has 0 federal mandate. The economic literature has not found unambiguous productivity benefit from any specific leave level, but worker subjective well-being correlates positively with statutory leave.
Related concepts
Statutory paid annual leave emerged as a worker right during the **early 20th-century labor reforms**. France pioneered with **2 weeks paid leave in 1936** under the Popular Front government — a Labor Minister Léon Blum reform that triggered the iconic "summer holiday for everyone" phenomenon. The UK followed with the **Holidays with Pay Act 1938** (mandatory 1 week, extended to 2 weeks in 1945). The ILO's **Holidays with Pay Convention 1936 (No. 52)** set 6 working days as the international floor, raised to 3 weeks in the **1970 Convention No. 132**. East Asian economies adopted similar concepts much later: Japan in **1947** with 6 days at the 1-year mark (the foundation of the current 10-day rule), Korea in **1953** under the 근로기준법 first enacted by President Rhee Syngman with explicit US/Japan influence. The US never ratified ILO No. 132, which is part of why it remains the only OECD outlier.
The **economic literature on paid leave** has converged on three findings over the past 30 years. **First**, **leave-taking does not damage productivity**: cross-country studies (OECD productivity database, Bloom & Van Reenen 2010 management practice survey) find no negative correlation between statutory leave levels and GDP per hour worked; if anything, there is a slight positive association via reduced burnout and turnover. **Second**, **public-mandated leave displaces some private vacation**: when France raised statutory leave from 4 to 5 weeks in 1982, employer-provided vacation shrunk to compensate, leaving net days only slightly higher. **Third**, **leave-taking rates differ wildly from entitlement**: Japanese employees take only ~50% of their statutory days due to workplace culture pressure ("hidden mandatory unpaid OT" and "team consideration"); Korean employees take ~65%; American knowledge workers ~75% of employer-provided PTO. The gap between **entitlement and actual use** is itself a major HR-policy and academic topic.
Three adjacent **labor-law concepts** intersect with annual leave. **Parental leave (육아휴직 / 育児休業 / parental leave)** is separate from annual leave and follows entirely different rules — Korea gives **1 year per child** at 80% pay (capped), Japan gives up to **2 years per child** at 50-67% pay, the EU minimum is 4 months per parent under Directive 2010/18/EU. Our **`holiday-calendar`** sister tool covers public holidays. **Working-time directives** also regulate maximum weekly hours and minimum daily rest — Korea's 52-hour workweek cap (2018, currently being relaxed for some sectors), Japan's 月45時間/年360時間 overtime caps (post-Work Style Reform 2019), and the EU's 48-hour weekly maximum with member-state opt-outs (UK and a few others). **Sick leave** as covered above is jurisdiction-specific with no global standard — the contrast with annual leave is that nearly all OECD countries have statutory sick leave while the US lacks both. For an outside reader, what looks like a single "vacation" concept actually fragments into 4-5 distinct legal entitlements with separate accrual rules, eligibility rules, and reconciliation rules.
