Tiếng Việt
中文 (中国)
When the employee wants to take annual leave days, how many days in advance should a leave notice be? Is there any regulations in Vietnamese laws stipulating the requirement days of advance notice from the employee’s side?
The Labor Code 2019 does not have a provision on the leave notice period. Clause 4, Article 113 of the Labor Code 2019 regulates that the employer is responsible for stipulating the annual leave schedule after consulting the employee and must notify the employee in advance.
Accordingly, employees will have an annual leave schedule decided by the employer stipulated in the company rules. Consequently, the employer has the rights to stipulate the number of annual leave fixed in one year after consulting and getting the permission of the employees. At the time the day off is recorded in the annual leave schedule, the employee is entitled to take leave without prior notice.
In practice, some companies will fix 3-5 days of company’s team building during the summer or near Lunar New Year’s Eve. The rest of the annual leave days will be left for the employees to take according to their own convenience. They may take it for various reasons such as sick, wedding of friends and relatives, funeral, etc.
In case employees want to take leave with more flexible time above their established annual leave days, they can negotiate with their employers. The employers are not forced to adjust their working plan but the the law always encourages enterprises to implement more favorable policies for employees.
To ensure benefits for employers regarding the arrangement to take over the work of the people taking leave, the employee should notify the employer in advance. How long the notice is depends on the agreement between the parties without limit on the number of days of prior notice. This should also be regulated in the company rules.
In order to harmonize the interests of the parties, the employer usually requires reasonable notice in advance. Unexpected cases with legitimate reasons are also approved for leave without prior notice like severe sick and disease, traffic accident, etc.
Number of annual leave days of Vietnamese employees
Clause 4 Article 113 regulates that employees can make an agreement with employers to take annual leave in installments or take a combined leave of up to 3 years at a time.
The number of leave days for employees working a full 12 month in the company specified in the Labor Code 2019 as follows:
- 12 working days/year if the employee does the job in normal conditions.
- 14 working days/year if the employee is a minor, the employee is a disabled person, or someone who does heavy, hazardous or dangerous jobs.
- 16 working days/year if the employee does particularly heavy, hazardous or dangerous occupations or jobs.
Aside from that, long-term employees are also entitled to a longer leave because for every full 05 years working for the same company, the employee will be entitled to an additional 01 day of leave (according to Article 114 of the Labor Code 2019).
In addition, an employee who has worked for less than 12 months is entitled to a number of leave days in proportion to the number of working months. Take note that for the case of compounding leave every 3 years, the total leave time will not exceed the total number of leave days of those 3 years.
Not giving employees leave, will the company be fined?
Taking leave is a privilege of employees. Employers are responsible for complying with the provisions on annual leave in the Labor Code 2019, allowing the employees to take leave if they have remaining leave days.
In the case of not allowing employees to take leave, employers will receive a penalty ranging from 10 to 20 million VND for violations of the law on weekly or annual leave or public holidays and New Year holidays according to Clause 2, Article 18 of Decree 12/2022/ND-CP.
For employers that are organizations, the fine will be doubled from 20 to 40 million VND according to Clause 1, Article 6 of Decree 12/2022/ND-CP.
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