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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Germany
I've been off work for three or four years now. Long Covid is a bitch. The paperwork was monstrous but now me and my wife get paid by a combination of the state's pension, health insurance so my wife gets paid for caring for me and my unable-to-work (can't think of the proper name) insurance.
But usually I'd get 26 to 30 vacation days per year.
UK. 30 days plus Bank Holidays as paid leave. Also, we have a flexible working system where we can work additional hours to accrue up to five days' leave. Longest continuous period I've taken off was three weeks. It's also WFH four days a week.
When I was applying for this job I was offered - and accepted - a job at an American company which paid a few thousand more but didn't do flexi hours or WFH. It actually felt pretty good letting them know I wouldn't be starting and why.
Japan gives me 20 days a year, can bank up to 40. Plus public holidays
USA
I currently have 80hrs of vacation and 40hrs of sick-time + a floating holiday
Also the major holidays
And a winter shutdown (~one and a half weeks)
Germany.
These are all paid, all working days.
I started this year with 9 vacation days from last year, I had to take them before the end of March, so I just randomly took a couple of weeks in Feb and Mar.
I usually align my vacation days with my kids school holidays, but I take 2-3 weeks continuously in the summer, usually late August.
It's a bit misleading to count the public holidays which are always on a Sunday. The normal maximum you can get with days that can fall on a weekday is 14 in the city of Augsburg.
And the number of sick days is not unlimited. The cause for the illness/injury must not be your fault. And then it's limited to six continuous weeks for the same cause. It's a bit more complex, but the gist is that it's not unlimited.
It's not limited to 6 weeks, you just need a doctor to tell your company you need longer (and your compensation is lowered iirc). Someone who gets run over by a lorry and has to stay in hospital for months doesn't lose their job, like they would in the US.
Public holidays vary per Bundesland. Berlin has the fewest!
The part about not losing your job is true. The six weeks are mandated by law, it's how long your employer has to pay your full salary. After that your health insurance will pick up the bill, paying "Krankengeld". This is limited to 78 weeks within a three year span. Krankengeld is limited to 70% of your income before taxes.
US, I just got to offer stage with a company and the PTO was 10 days... I'm originally from the UK, and previously worked with startups from other countries, so this is shocking to me. More infuriating was the response from my friend group when I complained about it. "Yeah that's pretty standard" and I'm like "ok but it's also shit?"
In the UK, for a university. 26 days + 8 days bank holidays. I've been offered the chance of 'buying' an extra 10 days (salary sacrifice, spread over the year), I might go for it.
Norway: 25 working days. And the pay is 12% of whatever you earned the previous year.
On top of that there are the public holidays. 2025 list, lazy copypasta:
1 Jan Wed New Year's Day
17 Apr Thu Maundy Thursday
18 Apr Fri Good Friday
20 Apr Sun Easter Sunday
21 Apr Mon Easter Monday
1 May Thu Labour Day
17 May Sat Constitution Day
29 May Thu Ascension Day
8 Jun Sun Whit Sunday
9 Jun Mon Whit Monday
25 Dec Thu Christmas Day
26 Dec Fri 2nd Day of Christmas
Sweden. 30 days of PTO per year.
I usually do three weeks in summer, two over Christmas and save the rest for random extended weekends when the public holidays align.
Also, I have about 90 days of paid, and 45 barely paid days parental leave left to take out. There was a total of 480 days for me and the Mrs to share in-betweenst ourselves per kid. I took four months off. Plus another 10 daddy-days to use immediately after baby was born.
Switzerland - 20 days is the legal limit, but we get 30 with one week around Christmas + New Year's Eve being mandatory.
I also got a special perk where I work 90% but due to a limitation of our system where we enter PTO, every Friday I take off doesn't count against my PTO budget (rather than only every second Friday). I have not told anyone.
France - never got some since i always was in internship/short/seasonal contracts. I have huge free time in unemployment periods though, and some are 'paid' by social aids, around 1 week each month if i worked the previous one. The legal basis is 30 days otherwise.
USA, 2 weeks/year but they don't expire and I can roll them over if I want to.
I usually vacation for 3 weeks at a time, it's a good amount of time to spend on one place I've never been and see a bunch.
Czechia. I get 20 days off mandated from the state, plus some (12-ish?) public holidays, plus every day I donate blood (that's up to 5 days a year).
My job gives me 5 extra vacation days, and when I'm on sick leave, pays me the full 100 % of my salary.
I take vacations for as long as I need :) But mostly I try to chip away at my supply with one- or two-day vacations, usually around weekends and/or combined with public holidays. I am obligated to take vacation at the end of the year, and I always take 3-4 days for a yearly local metal festival.
Finland - and zero days, since I’m self-employed. On the other hand, I can take a day (or even a week) off whenever I feel like it, and I only need to work about three days a week to cover my living expenses.
At my previous job, I used to get somewhere between 30 to 40 days of paid time off per year. It varied depending on the year and how many public holidays landed on weekdays.
Spain
Vacation: 30 natural days or if your employer is ok with you picking and choosing days here and there, 22 working days.
Holidays: around 14, or 15 between national, regional and local holidays.
Edit: depending on what collective labor agreement your job falls into you may have some more vacation days because upper limits to the number of working days in a year, I'm not sure how that works but I end up having an extra week each year.
US - 0
None at all, no sick, no holiday, no federal holiday, absolutely no PTO. If I don't go in I simply don't get paid.
Same and same.
UK here. I get 30 days paid leave a year, and will have 2 or 3 weeks away on vacation throughout the year and use the rest of the days for just chilling.
My employer will literally hassle me to use all the days, and is not happy if I don't take my full entitlement.
Germany 30 days
Plus basically unlimited sick days
Somewhat true. After six weeks you will get paid by the health insurance (around 70% of your paycheck).
UK, 25 days annual leave which is the standard minimum plus bank holidays
a few years ago, my friend got a remote IT job in the UK (from canada) and the VERY FIRST THING they started with upon hiring was planning the time off in relation to other people. it was so shocking to us, neither of us nor any of our friends had ever heard of this before. Here, people have so little time off that the employer can just coast on everyone working a little harder while their colleague is away a little bit here n there. But when you have people with 6-12 weeks off every year you do start to need to coordinate.
Standard question for any job I’ve had, it’s a position of strength for the new employee as they have to honour them as the dates were confirmed before they joined. If you wait till you are in the door you may not get them as others might already have them booked.
Canada - Four weeks vacation. Five and a half years with the company.
To explain for those not in Canada... It is usual in Canada for a job to start with a low level of PTO an then add a week every few years that you stay with the company. This usually is capped at 6 weeks.
You can, of course negotiate an amount of PTO when you accept a job. Someone coming into a more senior position wouldn't expect to start with just two weeks of PTO.
Brazil.
30 days + a lot of holidays.
At least 2 years for sickness if I'm not mistaken.
I might be wrong, you probably only get 20 in the way leave days are counted outside of Brazil. In most other countries days off don't count weekends, so a month of holidays is 20 days off.
Every single company I worked in Brazil gave a one month holiday that you could split at most in two, i.e. the minimum holiday you could take was 2 weeks. Whereas here in Europe every company I worked for gave me some number of days that you can take like you want, e.g. there's a public holiday on Friday? Take the next Monday for very an extended weekend, or use 4 days to have a 9 day holiday.
It's 30 days, but weekends count. Recently the law was amended to disallow scheduling vacations to start on a Friday because of that. It can be taken in full, or 15+15, or 10+20, or 10+10+10.
USA, CA, civil service, IBEW. I'm between 5 and 15 years (different PTO for different service lengths).
15 days vacation, all federal plus 5 floating holidays, and 10 sick days.
It's 10 days vacation between 1 and 5 years, and 20 after 15.
fuck man that is EMBARRASSING for a union of any sort.
It's city work.
USA, WA, IBEW. Less than 5 years, but ours doesn't change until 10 years(? I think I need to look this up).
20 days PTO accrual in a year, 2 personal holidays. No sick days.
I believe ours goes up to 28 days/year once at 20years with the company? It takes a lot for us
Ontario, Canada.
Employees with less than five years of employment are entitled to two weeks of vacation time after each 12-month vacation entitlement year. Employees with five or more years of employment are entitled to three weeks of vacation time.
If you read the link you will find the employer is allowed to pay out your vacation time as a % of pay. This is very common especially in lower wage sectors. You are then supposed to save up the money yourself to pay yourself for vacation when you take time off. In effect, you don't get any paid vacation.
edit: I'll also add that you have no right to select WHEN you take your vacay. A friend of mine worked in a factory that shut down for 2 weeks in august for maintenance, painting, service the machines etc. So everyone had to take their vacation during that time; no choice. That is unusual but not prohibited.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/vacation
9 public holidays
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/public-holidays
Employees are entitled to up to 3 sick leave days per year once they have worked for an employer for at least 2 consecutive weeks.
This is new since COVID. Which at the time it was introduced, mandated 10 days away from work.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/sick-leave
There are also other kinds of leave like parental, bereavement and such, if you click any links you can see that in the sidebar. Nothing is very lush.
Everything is prorated to a 40 hour work week. Breaks don't count. So if you work 20 hours per week, you are entitled to half of what is specified.
Any employer can offer more than this, of course. Professionals and higher valued workers can get more. Unions or individuals can negotiate. But a lot of people only get the minimum. Or less. Enforcement is minimal. It's the honor system.
There are also exceptions like federal workers (government, airlines etc). And farm workers, who basically have zero rights of any sort.
Australia: 20 days PTO by law, 13 public holidays (depends on the state, but no less than 10 which are national), 10 separate days for use when sick or caring for someone who is sick. There's more entitlements for different scenarios but this is pretty much the baseline.
USA, no paid time off.
But I make enough to take off a few weeks a year anyway.
USA. 4 weeks. Gotta love a good union!!!
US, unlimited vacation and PTO and the major holidays off. We’re encouraged to take off a minimum of 1wk per quarter. Definitely unique in the states. I work for an extremely large startup. Don’t know how long this vacation plan will last. lol.
US and I get I think six weeks a year off.
It's been a while since I did the math to figure how much I get but I think it was about six. I can take it more or less when I want. The only exceptions are around winter holiday time. That can get a little tricky, but other wise I can basically take off when I want.
Most of my time off is a day here or there. Rarely do I take a real vacation.
US. 20 vacation days, 6 personal days, 7 paid holidays.
Longest vacation I've taken has been about 10 days not counting weekends.
USA, I usually take a day or two at a time, either when I'm sick or I have a doctor's appointment.
I get 40 hours of PTO per year and both sick and vacation come from the same pool, sick days count as "points" though and you get 3 points in a 6 month period, exceeding that is termination.
Unpaid time off isn't an option until you run out of PTO.
US - unlimited
but is it really unlimited? At my last job, it was "unlimited with manager's approval", which basically means as long as the manager approves you're good to go, no hard limits, but in practice managers wouldn't approve more than 2-4 weeks (10-20 work days) a year, usually.
Unlimited paid time off? That means you are unemployed and rich?
In the US. I get all federal holidays plus my birthday and a few extra holidays (like an extra day around new years, Thanksgiving and Christmas) plus I get 25 days of paid vacation but no sick days. In 3.5 years I'll get the maximum of 30 days/year.
Our vacation time is tied to years of service.
1 year = one week 1-5 years = two weeks 5-10 years = three weeks 10-20 years= four weeks 20-25 years = five weeks 25+years = six weeks
Of course by "week" I mean 5 days of vacation.
US, in theory, unlimited PTO, but here's the problem in the US...
PTO is up to your employer, and while my employer is very generous, my wife's is not.
So I can't really take a holiday. I'd LIKE to, I have time available to take, and places I'd like to go, but it's not like I can tell my wife "Sucks you have to work, anyway, going to Vegas! See you next week!"
Pro top : take lots of pictures while on the vacation to Paris France. Send her the pictures. She'll be very greatful that you thought of her on your trip. Trust me.
