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Part-time holiday entitlement in the Netherlands, in hours

Jennifer Smit 7 min read
Person marking days in a yearly calendar

Emma works 24 hours a week for you: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, eight hours a day. Your spreadsheet gives her 12 holiday days. That works fine, until she starts working Fridays too from July. How much holiday does she get over the whole year then? And what happens to the hours still outstanding in December?

With part-timers, holiday is the first thing to go wrong, especially if you track it by hand. Luckily, the basics are simple. A part-timer in the Netherlands is entitled to at least four times the hours they work per week. For Emma, that's 96 hours a year, however she spreads those hours over the week. Below you'll find how to keep track when hours change, how public holidays work, and when the hours expire.

The basics on statutory and extra days are in holiday entitlement in the Netherlands.

Calculate in hours, not days

Dutch law works with the hours you agree per week, not with days. Four times those hours is the minimum, for everyone on the payroll:

  • 16 hours a week: 64 holiday hours a year

  • 20 hours a week: 80 holiday hours a year

  • 24 hours a week: 96 holiday hours a year

  • 28 hours a week: 112 holiday hours a year

  • 32 hours a week: 128 holiday hours a year

  • 36 hours a week: 144 holiday hours a year

  • 40 hours a week: 160 holiday hours a year

Why hours? Because working days aren't always the same length. Say Emma's colleague Mo also works 24 hours, but spread over four 6-hour days. In days, Emma has 12 and Mo has 16. That looks unfair, but in hours they both have 96. And both can take exactly four weeks off with it.

It gets trickier when someone's working days differ in length. If someone works 8 hours on Monday and 4 on Wednesday, a Monday off costs twice as much as a Wednesday off. If you count in days, you don't see that difference, and the balance no longer adds up at the end of the year.

Do you give more than the minimum, say an extra week? Then you calculate that pro rata too. For Emma, an extra week is 24 hours.

When hours change

From 1 July, Emma also works Fridays: 32 hours a week. You then calculate her holiday per period, with the hours that applied at the time:

  • January to June, 24 hours a week: half of 96 = 48 hours

  • July to December, 32 hours a week: half of 128 = 64 hours

  • total for the year: 112 holiday hours

The hours she built up in the first half simply stay. In hours, that adds up straight away. In days, it gets messy: a week off used to cost her three days, and now it costs four.

If someone starts partway through the year, it works the same way. Someone who starts on 1 April on 24 hours accrues over nine months: 9/12 of 96 = 72 hours.

Do you work with on-call workers or zero-hours contracts? They build up holiday too, over the hours they actually work. They often accrue part of a holiday hour for every hour worked. Exactly how you calculate it is in the collective labour agreement (cao) or the contract. If it isn't there, put it in writing.

Public holidays: a classic debate

Emma never works on Mondays. So Easter Monday and Whit Monday always fall on a day she has off anyway. Colleagues who do work Mondays simply get those days on top.

What does the law say? Nothing, really. No one in the Netherlands has a legal right to a day off on public holidays: that's in the cao or the employment contract. If you do give your employees public holidays off, you may not treat part-timers worse because they work fewer hours, unless there's an objective reason for it (article 7:648 of the Dutch Civil Code).

You can solve it as you see fit. One way is to give part-timers pro rata public holiday hours, which they schedule themselves. Whatever you choose, put it in writing, so no one has to guess.

When do Emma's hours expire?

That depends on the kind of hours:

  • Statutory hours expire six months after the year in which they were built up. What Emma builds up in 2026 expires on 1 July 2027.

  • Extra hours only lapse after five years. From 2026, that's on 31 December 2031.

You can give employees more time for the statutory hours in writing, but not less.

Say Emma still has 20 hours left on 31 December. Are those statutory or extra hours? That depends on the order in which you deduct them. If statutory hours go first, those 20 hours are extra hours and she has until the end of 2031. If extra hours go first, they're statutory hours, and they expire on 1 July. So set out that order in your leave policy.

Statutory hours don't always expire, either. If Emma reasonably couldn't take them, for example because she was sick for a long time, they stay and only lapse after five years. On top of that, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2018 that they don't expire automatically. You have to actually give Emma the chance to take them, and tell her in good time that they'll otherwise expire. If you can't show that, the hours can stay.

In practice, that's simple. Send a short email in the spring with the balance and the expiry date, and make sure there's room to take time off.

When Emma leaves or falls sick

If Emma leaves, you pay out the holiday hours still outstanding with the final pay, at her hourly wage. You also give her a statement of the balance that was still outstanding. A new employer may ask for it. Holiday allowance that hasn't been paid yet goes along too. How to calculate it is in holiday allowance in the Netherlands.

If Emma falls sick, she keeps building up holiday over her agreed hours. If she falls sick during her holiday, those hours don't count as holiday. More on that in employee sick during vacation.

How Heartsome helps

In Heartsome, you enter the annual entitlement in weeks. Heartsome converts it into days, based on the hours someone works per week. If your company works with 8-hour days, Emma gets 12 days at four weeks: 96 hours. Employees build up a little leave every day they're employed, so someone who joins partway through the year automatically gets the right share. They see the whole policy year from the start, so they can plan their holiday.

You put extra days in a separate policy, with its own expiry period. Note: by default, unused days expire at the end of the policy year. For statutory days, that's too early. So turn on carry-over for that policy, with an expiry date of 6 months. See all Heartsome features.

Frequently asked questions

How many holiday hours does someone on 24 hours a week get? At least 96 hours a year: four times 24.

How many holiday days does someone working 3 days a week get? At least 12, if those days are the same length. If they aren't, calculate in hours.

What happens to holiday hours if someone starts working less? What they've already built up stays. From the change onwards, they accrue over the new hours.

When do statutory holiday hours expire? On 1 July of the following year. Only if the employee was able to take them and you told them in good time that they'd expire.

Are part-timers entitled to public holidays? No one is, by law. If you do give full-timers public holidays off, don't treat part-timers worse.

These rules can change. This article gives a general picture based on current Dutch law and is not legal advice. If in doubt, always consult an employment lawyer or HR adviser.

Sources

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