Holiday allowance

You can claim your holiday allowance digitally

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Holiday allowance

Start View and claim your holiday allowance

You apply for disbursement of your holiday allowance on the self-service page. You can also see the holiday allowance you are owed at any time.

If you cannot apply for holiday allowance digitally

You can apply for disbursement of your holiday allowance in other ways.

Read more:

You can take a picture of the form and send digitally.

You can always see the holiday allowance you have earned on your self-service page.

Your employer calculates your holiday allowance. In general, you accrue 12.5% of your salary in holiday allowance. This complies with 2.08 days of holiday for every month that you are employed.

If your employment is shorter than one month or if there are days during a month that you do not accrue entitlement to holiday, you accrue 0.07 days of holiday for each day you are employed.

Holiday allowance from FerieKonto

FerieKonto administrates holiday allowance for all employees that are not included in a collective holiday arrangement.
Read more about when your employer is to pay holiday allowance to FerieKonto here, if FerieKonto is to disburse your holiday allowance:

As a general rule, you must take holiday in the right holiday year to claim your holiday allowance.

The first day of holiday must be on or after 1 September.

If you have applied for holiday allowance from FerieKonto, you will receive your allowance approx. four working days after you applied via the online self-service. This also applies if you enter the holiday retrospectively. Your holiday allowance will not be disbursed until one month before your first day of holiday at the earliest. The money will be paid into your NemKonto.

If you have applied for holiday allowance from your employer or another holiday fund, the time it takes before your holiday allowance is disbursed may vary. For more information, contact the company which is to disburse your holiday allowance.

You can see the name of the party which is to disburse your holiday allowance by logging onto your self-service page.

Start Transferring holidays due to a holiday hindrance for unemployed

You have to take your holiday to get your holiday allowance.

If you have been prevented from taking holiday up until 31 December 2023, you can transfer the amount of prevented days to the following holiday period. You can maximum transfer four weeks of prevented holiday.

You can be prevented from taking holiday for these reasons:

  • You are on sick leave or forced admission.
  • You are taking maternity/paternity/adoption leave, but not childcare leave.
  • You have been involuntarily committed.
  • You are resident outside of Denmark and are not covered by the Danish Holiday Act.
  • You have become self-employed.
  • You have become a stay-at-home parent/spouse/partner.
  • You have been elected mayor, taken up a ministerial appointment or similar position of trust.
  • You are serving a custodial sentence in a prison.
  • You are involved in an industrial dispute which is notified and lawfully concluded.
  • You are doing military or other similar service.
  • Deployment by the Danish Armed Forces or the Danish Emergency Management Agency to participate in conflict preventing, peace-keeping, peace-building or humanitarian assignments.  
  • You have no holiday allowance to cover your holiday due to a dispute between you and your employer over a holiday allowance claim – provided that you have filed the claim before the end of the holiday year.
  • You are attending to a close relative who is ill or dying and are therefore on leave, or you have for a limited period of time been awarded compensation for loss of earnings, pay or other remuneration under the Social Services Act.
  • You served within the Ministry of Defense or police due to war, disasters or other extraordinary circumstances.
  • You have completed required work for public safety or health reasons within the regional and municipal healthcare system, the homecare system or at nursing homes under very extraordinary circumstances when a disease is categorised as being a critical societal threat pursuant to the Danish Epidemic Act’s section §2,6.

Reasons such as severe pressure of work or a change of job are not valid reasons for being prevented from taking holiday.

The main rule is that holidays must be taken from 1 September to 31 December the following year. If you are unable to do so, you can agree with your employer that you will transfer accrued holidays in excess of four weeks to the next holiday-taking period.

The holiday does not have to be accrued in the company at which you are now working. If you have accrued the holiday allowance from another employer, it is your current employer you must make an agreement with on the transfer of holidays.

Please note that you may be covered by a collective agreement that imposes other rules on transferring holidays to the next period. You can contact your labour union if you are in doubt about what is in your collective agreement.

If you wish to transfer holidays to the next holiday-taking period, you must first make a written agreement with your employer.

Please note that you must take transferred holidays before taking other accrued holidays. Even if you have transferred holidays, you are not entitled to take a primary holiday of more than three consecutive weeks.

You have accrued holiday in excess of 4 weeks (former 5th week of holiday) if you have been employed for more than 9.5 months during the holiday year from 1 September to 31 August. 

The disbursement of holiday in excess of 4 weeks – prior to 31 December

 If you have not taken all of your holiday before 31 December (the end of the holiday taking period), you can enter into a written agreement with your employer regarding the disbursement of the part of your holiday that exceeds 4 weeks. You can enter into a written agreement without taking the holiday.

It is not your right to get holiday in excess of 4 weeks disbursed ahead of time. You and your employer have to enter into a written agreement regarding the disbursement. You have to be employed when you enter into the written agreement.

When you choose to have holiday in excess of 4 weeks disbursed, you no longer have the right to take the remaining holiday within the holiday taking period. Similarly, your employer cannot notify you to take the remaining holiday within the holiday taking period. 

You can order your holiday allowance with “I have holiday in excess of 4 weeks and am employed” (jeg har ferie ud over 4 uger og er i et ansættelsesforhold) as the reason, if you meet the requirements for disbursement of holiday in excess of 4 weeks.

If you have received public benefits during the holiday year, you must declare which public benefits you have received and how many days you have received them. This is because the number of holidays you can get disbursed will be reduced by the number of days you have received public benefits.

Please note that you cannot get holiday in excess of 4 weeks disbursed if you have already entered into an agreement with your employer regarding the transfer of your holiday to the next holiday taking period. 

The disbursement of holiday in excess of 4 weeks – after 31 December 

Generally, you will automatically get holiday in excess of 4 weeks disbursed if you have unused holiday that has not been transferred when the holiday taking period ends on 31 December. The holiday must be disbursed to you at the latest 31 March after the holiday taking period. 

In order to get your holiday automatically disbursed, you must have been employed full-time with your current employer for the duration of the holiday taking period (from 1 September to 31 December the following year).You can request the disbursement of holiday in excess of 4 weeks yourself if you have not been employed by the same employer during the totality of the holiday taking period.

Public benefits during the holiday taking period

If you have received public benefits during the holiday taking period, you must disclose which public benefits you have received and the number of days you have received them. The reason for this is that the number of holidays you can get disbursed will be reduced by the number of days you have received public benefits.

You must request the disbursement of your holidays before 30 September after the holiday taking period if you have received public benefits. 

Claim your holiday allowance

You apply for disbursement of your holiday allowance on the self-service page. If you do not have MitID, you can apply for the disbursement of holiday in excess of 4 weeks by filling out the following form: 

You can take a picture of the form and send it digitally.

If you believe there are errors in the amount or the number of days of holiday, you must contact the employer from which you earned the holiday allowance, because the errors can only be corrected by the employer.

If you have any questions about disbursement of your holiday allowance, you must contact the party which is to disburse the holiday allowance.

If you are unclear about where your holiday allowance is deposited, you can log on to your self-service page to see which company is listed under ’Udbetaler’ (Disburser).

When on maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave, you will accrue holidays if you get the entirety or some of your salary paid by your employer. Even if your employer is only getting partial reimbursement from Udbetaling Danmark – Public Benefits Administration, you are still entitled to paid holiday.

You also accrue holidays if there are periods where you only get paid pension from your employer. The pension contributions are considered as part of your salary.

You do not accrue holidays if you are only getting paid maternity/paternity benefits. However, you may be able to get holiday benefits.

Getting holiday allowance during maternity/paternity leave

When you take the holidays that you have accrued during your maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave, the payment will depend on whether you are working for the same employer that you accrued the holidays with.

If you take paid holidays and you are working for the same employer, you are entitled to receive your usual salary during the holiday period.

However, if you have been dismissed/resigned, your employer must report and pay your holiday allowance when your employment ends.

If you have received maternity/paternity benefits during your leave period, you must contact your unemployment insurance fund.If you work part-time and are on maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave, you will accrue paid holidays if you are paid for every working day of the month.

If you are not paid for the days where you take your leave, then you will not accrue holidays from these days. You accrue 0.07 days of paid holiday per day of paid employment.

You cannot take holiday when on maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave. If your leave begins during your holiday or if you get a pregnancy-related illness during your holiday, then you can interrupt your holiday and take the rest at a later date.

If you have partially resumed work and are working full-time days, you can take your remaining holidays on the days that you are working. You cannot take your primary holiday of 15 days, as this must be taken in a consecutive period.

Example: You have resumed full-time work from Monday to Wednesday. You are on maternity/paternity leave on Thursday and Friday. You can therefore take your remaining holidays on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

You can transfer up to four weeks of holiday if you are prevented from taking a holiday due to maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave all the way up to the end of the holiday taking period which expires on 31 December. It is your employer that must notify Feriepengeinfo about how many days of holiday to transfer. Your employer must notify of this before 31 January after the period has ended.

Please note that if you have been prevented from taking a holiday due to maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave in the period from 1 May 2020 to 31 August 2020, then your holidays have automatically been transferred to be held in the period from 1 September 2020 to 31 December 2021.

Payments

In the event of long-term maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave, in some special situations you will be able to get the holidays paid out instead of transferring them.

In order to get the holidays paid out, it is a requirement that you are prevented from taking your holiday due to maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave in two holiday-taking periods in a row. If, for example, you are prevented from taking holiday before the first period expires on 31 December, and you can then take the holiday in the subsequent period, you will not be able to get the holidays paid out.

You must therefore be able to document that you have been prevented from taking your holiday due to a long-term maternity/paternity leave or adoption leave in two consecutive holiday-taking periods.

Example: A pregnant wage earner with paid holiday gets complications during the fourth month of pregnancy on 1 November 2021. She is then on sick leave until birth on 1 March 2022 and is on maternity leave up until 31 December 2022. When she got sick, she had taken three weeks of holiday and therefore had 10 days left of accrued but unused paid holiday.

Five of the excess holidays can be transferred as a prevented holiday in the first holiday-taking period and when the second holiday-taking period expires, i.e. on 31 December of the year in which the child was born, the holidays can be paid out.

You accrue holiday allowance from September to August the following year (12 months). You can use the holiday allowance from September, the year you start to accrue holiday allowance, to December the following year (16 months). The Holiday Act allows you to take your holiday as soon as the month after you have earned it e.g. the holiday allowance you accrue in September you can use in October. 

Holiday allowance may consist of:

  • paid holiday and holiday supplement
  • payment in lieu of untaken days of holiday

Paid holiday and holiday supplement

If you are entitled to paid holiday, you will receive your usual pay when you take holiday. In addition, you are entitled to a holiday supplement of 1% of your pay from September to August. There are two ways of getting the holiday supplement disbursed:

  • You can get the holiday supplement for the first nine months disbursed with your pay for May and for the remaining three months with your pay for August.
  • You can get the holiday supplement disbursed, when your holiday begins.

Paid holiday and holiday supplement is managed by your employer.

Payment in lieu of untaken days of holiday

Employees who do not get paid holiday may have earned entitlement to payment in lieu of untaken days of holiday. When you have earned entitlement to payment in lieu of untaken days of holiday, you can claim an amount corresponding to the number of days of holiday you take. At lifeindenmark.dk you can see the payment in lieu of untaken days of holiday you have earned.