Annual Paid Leave

According to Article 53 of the Labor Law No. 4857; Workers who have completed 1 year at the workplace are entitled to annual leave. This one year is calculated by adding their previous work for those who have worked at the workplace before. The probation period is also taken into account. A proportional leave entitlement is not foreseen for workers who have not completed 1 year. In case annual leave is used for workers who have not completed 1 year and have not yet earned annual leave, it will be necessary to obtain a letter of consent from the worker and approval for the deduction of this leave from the leaves they will be entitled to, and a commitment to pay the employer for the leave they have used if they leave the job for any reason before they have yet earned leave.

*Annual paid leave will be granted for workers who have worked for 1-5 years, not less than 14 days,

for workers who have worked for 5-10 years, not less than 20 days,
and for those who have worked for 15 years and above, not less than 26 days.

Less than 20 days of leave cannot be granted to workers who are under the age of 18 and over the age of 50.

The right to annual paid leave cannot be waived. It cannot be reduced by employment contracts and collective bargaining agreements. According to the law, the employer must provide the employee with the right to annual paid leave on a continuous basis. However, the leave periods can also be used by dividing them into periods of not less than 10 days by agreement of the parties. Until 26.04.2016, there was a legal regulation stating that a part of the leaves could be divided into a maximum of 3, provided that one part was not less than 10 days. However, with Article 16 of the Law No. 6704 on “Law on Granting Monthly Allowances to Needy, Weak and Destitute Turkish Citizens Over the Age of 65 and Amending Certain Laws and Legislative Decrees”, which was accepted on 14.04.2016 and published in the Official Gazette No. 29695 on 26.04.2016 and entered into force as of the date of publication, the third paragraph of Article 56 of Law No. 4857 was changed as follows: “… The leave periods stipulated in Article 53 may be used in parts, provided that one part is not less than ten days, upon the agreement of the parties.” *The employer must keep a leave record document showing the annual paid leaves of the employees working at the workplace. Keeping a copy of the leave papers given to the worker, signed by the worker, together with the annual leave book to be kept, in the employee’s personnel file will be useful in proving whether these leaves have been used in the future.

*Other paid and unpaid leaves or rest and sick leaves given by the employer during the year cannot be offset from the annual leave. National holidays, general holidays and weekend days that coincide with the annual leave period are not counted as leave period.

*The employer must pay the annual leave wage to each worker who uses their annual paid leave in advance or pay it as an advance payment before the relevant worker starts their leave.

*Workers who will spend their leave at a place other than where the workplace is established may request travel leave from the employer to cover the time they will spend on the road for going and returning, provided that they document this matter. The employer must also provide the workers with a total of up to 4 days of unpaid travel leave.
*If the employment contract is terminated for any reason, the wages for the annual leave periods that the employee is entitled to but has not used shall be paid to the employee based on the wages on the date the contract is terminated. The statute of limitations for this wage shall start from the date the employment contract is terminated. Annual leave payments cannot be made to an employee who is still working before the employment contract is terminated. *According to Article 59 of the Labor Law, in the event that the employment contract is terminated by the employer, notice periods and new job search permits cannot be combined with annual paid leave periods. If the employer terminates the employment contract for a certain period, the employer cannot force the employee to use annual leave; however, if the termination is made by the employee, the employee may request to use the annual paid leave that he/she is entitled to but has not used within the notice period.

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