Holiday days per month worked: how to calculate them
One employee who joined in March, another leaving in September, a four-month temporary contract… and the same old question every time: how many holiday days are they entitled to? When someone hasn’t worked the full year, they don’t take their holiday entitlement in full, but rather the pro-rata portion based on the time worked. The good news is that the calculation is simple once you know the rule. Let’s walk through it with clear examples, tailored to what any Spanish SME needs.
How many holiday days do you accrue per year in Spain?
The artÃculo 38 del Estatuto de los Trabajadores (Article 38 of the Spanish Workers’ Statute) sets the legal minimum at 30 calendar days per year worked. That’s the floor: no collective agreement or contract can reduce it, although many collective agreements improve on it by referring to working days (typically around 22 working days, which broadly equate to those 30 calendar days).
Two important points before you calculate anything:
- 30 calendar days means calendar days, public holidays and weekends included. It is not 30 working days.
- Holiday is paid as if the worker were active: nothing is deducted from their salary for taking it.
How many days do you accrue per month worked?
Here is the rule that answers most questions. If a full year generates 30 calendar days, each month worked generates:
30 days ÷ 12 months = 2.5 calendar days per month worked
In other words, for every full month an employee works, they accrue 2.5 calendar days of holiday. From there, working out the pro-rata portion is a matter of multiplication:
- 1 month worked → 2.5 days
- 3 months → 7.5 days
- 6 months → 15 days
- 9 months → 22.5 days
- 12 months → 30 days
When the result comes out with decimals (7.5 or 22.5), the usual practice is to round up in the worker’s favour, unless the collective agreement states otherwise. Many agreements also spell out how to handle part-month fractions.
And if they haven’t worked a full month, what happens with the odd days?
When someone joins mid-month or leaves before the month ends, it is also pro-rated within the month. The most precise method is to calculate by days: divide the 30 holiday days by the 365 days in the year and multiply by the days actually worked.
(30 ÷ 365) × days worked = holiday days
For example, a 100-day contract generates approximately (30 ÷ 365) × 100 = 8.2 calendar days of holiday. This is the fairest method for short contracts, mid-month start dates or final settlements.
Does the calculation change for part-time work?
No. A part-time worker accrues exactly the same holiday days as a full-time worker: 30 calendar days per year, or the pro-rata portion based on the time worked. Reduced hours affect the amount paid (proportional to the hours), but not the number of days of rest they are entitled to.
It’s a very common mistake in SMEs to cut the holiday entitlement of someone working part-time. The law does not allow it: the right to rest is the same, only the pay changes.
Untaken holiday at the end of a contract
If a worker leaves the company before taking the holiday they have accrued, the law requires it to be compensated financially in the final settlement. This is the only case in which holiday is paid in money: while the employment relationship is still active, it is taken as rest, not paid out.
The final settlement calculation follows the same logic: you count the days accrued based on the time worked in the year, subtract the days already taken, and pay the balance. If you’re interested in whether those days expire, we cover it in detail in our guide on how holiday carries over from one year to the next.
Can the employee choose when to take their holiday?
The holiday period is set by mutual agreement between employer and worker. The company can establish specific periods (for example, a shutdown in August), but cannot impose them unilaterally without negotiation, and the holiday schedule must be known at least two months in advance of the date on which it will be taken.
In practice, for an SME this means getting organised in good time: employee requests, manager approval and a clear picture of who is off each week so you’re never left short-staffed.
How to streamline holiday management in your company
Calculating pro-rata days, tracking requests, avoiding overlaps and keeping an eye on outstanding balances is perfectly manageable with two employees. With fifteen, the spreadsheet starts to break down and payroll errors begin to creep in.
A holiday management software solves this at the root:
- Calculates on its own the days each person is entitled to based on their start date and their working hours, including the pro-rata amounts for mid-year joiners and leavers.
- Lets employees request from their phone and managers approve with a single click, keeping a record of everything.
- Shows a team calendar so you can see at a glance who is away and avoid too many absences coinciding.
- Keeps the balance up to date in real time, with no manual reconciliation at year-end.
What’s more, by integrating with time tracking, absences and clock-in records stay in sync: when someone is on holiday, they don’t show up as a missed shift.
Quick summary
- The legal minimum in Spain is 30 calendar days per year worked (art. 38 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores).
- Each full month generates 2.5 calendar days of holiday.
- For part-months, use the formula
(30 ÷ 365) × days worked. - Part-time work does not reduce the days, only the amount paid.
- At the end of a contract, untaken holiday is paid in the final settlement.
With the 2.5-days-per-month rule you’ve solved 90% of cases. For the rest — short contracts, mid-month start dates, agreements with improvements — automating the calculation saves you errors and disputes. And that is precisely the kind of work that good HR software takes off any SME’s plate.