Guides / Remote & multi-country teams
Managing Annual Leave Across Multiple Countries
How to run one leave policy for a team spread across countries with different statutory minimums, public holidays, carryover rules and payout obligations — and why a shared spreadsheet fails at exactly the moment it matters.
Set one global floor at or above your highest statutory minimum, then layer each country's mandatory rules — public holidays, carryover, expiry and payout — as local policy groups. Track accrual and approvals per country with an audit trail, because across the EU and Australia the untaken balance is money you owe when someone leaves.
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Why one spreadsheet cannot do this
A leave tracker for a single country needs one accrual rate, one public-holiday calendar and one carryover rule. Add a second country and every one of those becomes a variable. Add five and the spreadsheet is quietly wrong for someone every month:
- An employee in Luxembourg accrues 26 days; a colleague in Germany accrues 20.
- Statutory days in the Netherlands expire six months after the accrual year; leave in Australia never expires.
- In Sweden employees may save five days a year for up to five years; in France the reference year runs June to May.
- In every EU country and Australia the untaken balance must be paid out at exit; in most US states it is whatever the written policy says.
The arithmetic is easy. Keeping it correct for twelve people in five countries, with an audit trail that proves what each balance was on a given date, is not.
Step 1 — Map the statutory floors
Start from the law, not from the policy you would like to have. For each country where someone habitually works, record the four facts that decide everything:
| Country | Statutory minimum (5-day week) | Public holidays | Carryover / expiry | Payout at exit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 20 days (24 Werktage on a 6-day week) | Separate, by federal state | Take within the year; protected if the employer failed to inform | Required |
| France | 25 days (2.5 per month worked) | Separate | Reference period June–May | Required |
| Netherlands | 20 days (4 × weekly hours) | Separate | Statutory days expire 6 months after the year; extra days last 5 years | Required |
| Spain | 22 days (30 calendar days) | Separate, 14 a year | Take within the year, limited exceptions | Required |
| Australia | 20 days (4 weeks; 5 for shift workers) | Separate | Never expires | Required |
The full table covers thirty countries; the US state guide covers all 51 jurisdictions.
Step 2 — Choose a policy architecture
There are three honest ways to structure leave for a multi-country team:
Local policies only. Each country gets exactly its statutory rule. Cheapest, legally clean, and it feels unequal: the Luxembourg hire gets six more days than the German one for the same job.
A global floor with local uplifts (usually the right answer). Pick a company-wide minimum at or above your highest statutory floor — say 25 or 28 days — and apply each country’s mandatory rules underneath it: public holidays, carryover, expiry, payout. Everyone gets the same headline; the law is still satisfied everywhere.
A single generous global policy. Everyone gets, for example, 30 days. Simple to sell, more expensive, and it still does not remove local mandatory rules — Dutch expiry, Swedish saving, Australian non-expiry all still apply to the statutory portion.
Whatever you pick, “unlimited PTO” collides with Europe: where payout at exit is mandatory, you still need a quantifiable accrued balance to pay.
Step 3 — Public holidays are per location, not per company
A Spanish employee has 14 public holidays a year; a German one has a number that depends on the federal state; an Irish one has ten. In almost every country these come on top of annual leave. The one exception in our dataset is the United Kingdom, where employers may count public holidays towards the 5.6-week entitlement. Build one calendar per location and attach people to it — a company-wide holiday list will be wrong for everyone outside head office.
Step 4 — Encode carryover and expiry per country
This is where spreadsheets fail silently. A year-end formula that zeroes balances is illegal in Australia, wrong for the Swedish saver, and premature for the Dutch statutory days that live until 30 June. Settled EU case law adds another layer: leave an employee could not take because of sickness or parental leave is protected and does not simply lapse.
Step 5 — Account for the payout liability
In payout-mandatory countries every unused day is a debt: accrued days × that person’s daily rate. A monthly report of accrued balances by country is the difference between knowing your liability and discovering it on someone’s last day. It also catches the quiet problem of long-serving employees in non-expiry countries banking months of leave.
Step 6 — Approvals and the audit trail
When a departing employee disputes their balance, the question is never “what does the spreadsheet say now” but “what was approved, by whom, when, and what was the balance at that moment”. Chat threads and email do not survive that question. Whatever you use has to record every request, approval and policy change immutably.
Step 7 — Employment compliance is a separate problem
Everything above assumes you can lawfully employ the person in their country: a local entity or an employer of record, payroll registered, social security in the right system. That is a different decision from leave tracking, covered in Hiring your first employee in another country. Which country’s law applies in the first place is covered in Which country’s leave law applies to a remote employee?.
Common questions
Can we give everyone the same number of days regardless of country?
Yes, as long as the number is at or above every applicable statutory minimum — and the local mandatory rules on public holidays, carryover, expiry and payout still apply underneath it. A global 28 days is simple to communicate; it does not remove Luxembourg's payout rule or the Netherlands' expiry rule.
Do public holidays come out of the annual leave allowance?
In almost every European country and in Australia, no — public holidays are separate and come on top of statutory annual leave. The United Kingdom is the notable exception, where employers may count public holidays towards the 5.6-week entitlement.
How do we handle carryover when every country has a different rule?
Encode the rule per country rather than per company. Dutch statutory days expire six months after the accrual year, Swedish employees may save five days a year for up to five years, Australian leave never expires. A single company-wide carryover cap will be wrong somewhere.
Does 'unlimited PTO' work for a European team?
Not cleanly. In countries where unused leave must be paid out when employment ends, you still need a quantifiable accrued balance to pay out — and the statutory minimum still has to be genuinely available and taken as rest. Most companies running "unlimited" in Europe keep a formal accrued entitlement underneath it.
Related guides
Hiring Your First Employee Abroad: Leave, Holidays & Payroll
The three ways to employ someone abroad — a local entity, an employer of record, or a contractor — and exactly what chan…
Which Country's Leave Law Applies to a Remote Employee?
For a remote employee in the EU or UK, the leave law of the country where they habitually work applies as a floor — what…
US Company Hiring in Europe: What Changes for Paid Leave
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Sources
- Directive 2003/88/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (Working Time Directive), Article 7
- Fair Work Ombudsman (Australia) — Annual leave
- Leave Atlas — statutory annual leave by country, each entry sourced to national law
General information, not legal advice. Rules change and national implementations differ — confirm against the current text or a local employment lawyer before acting. See our methodology.