Leave by country / Indonesia
Indonesia annual leave entitlement
How much paid leave people in Indonesia get, what happens to unused days, and what you owe when someone leaves — in plain English, whether you run a team there or work on one.
Indonesia guarantees at least 12 working days of paid annual leave after 12 months of continuous service, under article 79(3) of the Manpower Law as amended by the 2023 Job Creation Law. The leave is fully paid, its timing is set by the contract or company regulations, and untaken leave that has not yet lapsed must be paid out on termination as part of the compensation of rights.
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What the law actually says
Article 79(3), as replaced by the 2023 Job Creation Law, requires at least 12 working days of annual leave once a worker has completed 12 months of continuous service, and article 84 keeps that leave fully paid. How it is taken is left to the employment contract, company regulations or the collective agreement under article 79(4), so the statute sets the quantity and the employer sets the mechanics. The Job Creation Law also downgraded the long-service break: the two-month istirahat panjang that Law 13/2003 made compulsory after six years is now something "certain companies may" grant under article 79(5), not a statutory right.
Worth knowing: Article 156(4)(a) counts annual leave "not yet taken and not yet lapsed" as part of the uang penggantian hak — the compensation of rights an employer owes alongside severance and long-service pay when employment ends. The qualifier carries the weight: leave that has already lapsed under the company's own rules is outside the payout, which makes the employer's written lapse rule the thing that decides how much is actually owed.
What happens to unused leave in Indonesia
Indonesian law sets no expiry date itself. Article 79(4) hands the mechanics of taking leave to the employment contract, company regulations or collective agreement, and most Indonesian employers do set a lapse period, commonly some months into the following year. Because article 156(4)(a) pays out only leave that has not yet lapsed, a strict company rule genuinely reduces what is owed on termination — which is why the written policy matters more here than in countries with a statutory carry-over window.
When employment ends, the untaken balance must be paid. This is the rule across the European Union and Australia, and it is the sharpest contrast with the United States, where whether unused time is paid out depends entirely on which state the employee works in.
If you run a team in Indonesia
- Write the entitlement into every contract. At least 12 days; more is fine, less is void. Collective agreements may add to it.
- Track accrual and carryover to the day, with a record of every approval. When someone leaves, the untaken balance is money you owe, and you will need to show how you got to the number.
- Budget for the payout. Every unused day on the books is a liability at that person's current pay rate — it does not disappear at year end.
If you work in Indonesia
- Check your contract gives at least 12 days. Anything less is unenforceable.
- Keep your own record of approved leave. Payroll systems get changed; your notes don't.
- When you leave, untaken statutory leave must be paid out. It cannot be forfeited.
Countries with the same 12-day minimum
Calculating an employee's balance
Entitlement is the starting point; the working number is what an individual has actually accrued at a given date. Our accrual calculator converts an annual entitlement into a per-pay-period figure and a current balance.
Tracking Indonesia leave correctly
Because untaken leave is money the employer owes, the balance has to be provable. Spreadsheets fail at exactly the moment they matter — when someone disputes what they were owed on their last day and nobody can reconstruct the record.
For a single-country team, Leavo handles Indonesia accrual rules, carryover and approvals with a full audit trail. If you employ people in more than one country, statutory entitlements, carryover rules and payout obligations differ in every one — that is the case for a platform like Deel that handles multi-country employment rather than leave alone. We compare the options in our leave management software guide.
Indonesia annual leave: common questions
How many paid annual leave days are employees entitled to in Indonesia?
12 working days is the statutory minimum in Indonesia, equivalent to 2.4 weeks on a five-day working week, under Law No. 13 of 2003 on Manpower, art. 79(3), as amended by Law No. 6 of 2023 (Job Creation). Employers and collective agreements may grant more, never less.
Must unused annual leave be paid out when employment ends in Indonesia?
Yes. Payment in lieu of untaken statutory leave is required when the employment relationship ends in Indonesia. During employment, statutory leave must be taken as time off and cannot be exchanged for cash.
Can an employer in Indonesia refuse a leave request?
An employer can usually influence when leave is taken for operational reasons, but cannot deny the entitlement itself. The right to the minimum number of days is statutory and cannot be contracted away.
Do public holidays count towards the 12-day entitlement in Indonesia?
No. Public holidays are separate from the 12-day statutory annual leave entitlement in Indonesia.
Source
Primary source: Law No. 13 of 2003 on Manpower, art. 79(3), as amended by Law No. 6 of 2023 (Job Creation). Statutory minimums change, and collective agreements frequently exceed them — confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.