Annual Leave and Holiday Allowance: Employee Rights and Employer Obligations in Slovenia
The Employment Relationships Act (Zakon o delovnih razmerjih - ZDR-1) clearly regulates both the right to annual leave and the employer’s obligation to pay the holiday allowance. However, the complexity of regulations regarding deadlines, amounts, and tax burdens requires a good understanding of the law. For smooth labor relations, it is essential that both employees and employers are aware of their rights and obligations in this area.
The deadline for payment of the holiday allowance for 2025 is July 1st. By this date, employers must fulfill their legal obligation. For the year 2025, the minimum amount of the holiday allowance is set at 1,277.72 EUR, although higher payments are possible if stipulated by a sectoral collective agreement, an individual employment contract, or the employer’s internal regulation.
The Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia (IRSD) emphasizes the importance of fulfilling this obligation consistently and reminds employers that payment for work is a fundamental and inalienable right of every employee.
Every employee who is entitled to annual leave is also entitled to the holiday allowance. This is stipulated in Article 131 (annual leave allowance)of the Employment Relationships Act (ZDR-1). The allowance is granted regardless of whether the employee uses the full amount of annual leave during the current year or not.
If an employee has a part-time employment contract, they are entitled to a proportional part of the holiday allowance, except in specific cases, such as employment under pension, disability, health insurance, or parental leave regulations. In these cases, the employee is entitled to the full amount of the holiday allowance.
An employee who enters into an employment relationship during the year acquires the right to a proportional part of the allowance, according to the number of months worked.
Nekaj podatkov iz letnega poročila Inšpektorata Republike Slovenije za delo
Data from the IRSD Annual Report
Among all violations related to payment for work in 2024, the most frequent were related to the holiday allowance for annual leave. Labour inspectors identified 1,628 violations in 2024, compared to 1,432 violations in 2023 and 1,891 violations in 2022.
The highest number of complaints regarding pay referred to the non-payment or delayed payment of the holiday allowance, and this was also the area with the most confirmed violations.
IRSD has been cooperating with the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia (FURS) for several years by exchanging data on employers who did not submit the REK form for holiday allowance payments for individual workers. The nature of violations has not significantly changed compared to previous years. Inspectors found that some employers pay the allowance in multiple installments, citing liquidity problems – a justification not defined in the ZDR-1.
In some cases, employers paid the allowance in cash, which increases the risk of abuse, since ZDR-1 does not specifically require the payment to be made to a transaction account. IRSD also handled cases where employers paid the holiday allowance only to employees who remained employed after July 1st, and not to those whose employment ended earlier in the year or who were hired after July 1st.
There were also issues regarding the deadline for the payment of the proportional part of the allowance and determining which unit of time should be used for the calculation, with case law being inconsistent in this regard. The ZDR-1 does not explicitly define the deadline for payment of the allowance for employees hired after July 1st or those whose employment ended before that date.
Additionally, there were cases of abuse that were difficult to prove – for example, when the employer paid the allowance but later demanded the employee withdraw the amount from their bank account and return it in cash. Inspectors also found cases where employers paid different amounts of the allowance to employees, although they usually paid at least the statutory minimum to all by the legal deadline, as required by Article 131 of ZDR-1 or by the applicable collective agreement.
Inspection Campaign on Article 131 (annual leave allowance) of ZDR-1
The IRSD has for years identified the most violations in the area of payment for work, especially related to the holiday allowance. The right to the allowance is inalienable and closely tied to the use of annual leave, which is essential for the restoration of workers’ physical and mental capacities.
For this reason, IRSD continued to carry out intensified inspections in 2024, including retroactive inspections within the limitation period.
Details on the number of inspections and other findings can be found in the 2024 Annual Report of the Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia (the report is in the Slovenian language).