Blog, HR & Payroll: 03.07.26Summer holidays in Switzerland: what the Code of Obligations says about leave

Every summer, the same situations come up in Swiss SMEs. An employee comes back from a two-week holiday with a medical certificate and asks to recover the days they were sick. Another wants to take their leave as single days spread across the year, without a two-week block. A third has built up unused overtime before leaving and wonders how it should be handled. Swiss employment law has answers for these situations, but many directors discover the rules the moment the case lands on their desk. This article sets out the essential legal framework and reviews the practical cases that come up most often.

Swiss holiday law rests mainly on the Code of Obligations, articles 329a to 329d. The legal minimum is four weeks of paid holiday per year, and five weeks for employees up to and including the age of twenty. Most collective labour agreements grant more, and some individual contracts provide for more favourable terms. The rule is simple: whatever is more favourable to the employee takes precedence over the legal minimum.

The employer sets the holiday dates while taking the employee’s wishes into account as far as this is compatible with the interests of the business. This is not a concession, it is a legal obligation. In practice, it means you cannot impose dates arbitrarily, but neither are you obliged to accept every request. Discussing things beforehand and keeping a written record of decisions avoids most disputes.

Holidays must be taken during the year in which they fall due. Carrying them over to the following year remains possible if circumstances require it, but it should not become the rule. Paying compensation in place of holiday actually taken is only permitted at the end of the employment contract. During the working relationship, the employee has a right to rest, not to additional pay.

At mid-year, many employees have not yet used half of their annual holiday. The question comes up regularly: what should be done with days not taken by the end of June, especially if the summer will not be enough to clear them all?

The rule is clear. Holiday is due for the calendar year and must be taken during that year. Carrying it over is allowed in certain objective circumstances, for example an exceptional workload, a long illness, or an unforeseen event. But systematic carry-over, or worse, the idea of paying for days not taken, does not comply with the law.

For the employer, the risk is twofold. Legally, letting unused leave balances build up can be read as implicit pressure not to take time off, which is never a good position in the event of a dispute. Operationally, a heavy balance at the end of December becomes a headache to fit into the January schedule.

The healthy practice is to invite the employee, from June onwards, to plan when they will actually take their days over H2. A simple review of balances and an open discussion prevent tensions at the end of the year.

Article 329c of the Code of Obligations provides that holidays are, as a general rule, to be given during the relevant year of service, and that at least two weeks must be consecutive. This obligation is often forgotten by employers and employees alike.

For the director, this means you cannot accept an employee taking their four weeks as single days spread across the year. The legal rule requires at least one continuous period of two weeks. Beyond that, the remaining weeks can be split more freely, according to internal practice and the applicable agreements.

The purpose of this rule is protective. The point of holidays is not to book off individual days, but to allow genuine recovery. Two consecutive weeks is the minimum that lets an employee truly disconnect and come back rested. An employer who too readily accepts fully fragmented holidays takes a risk with the health and productivity of their team in the medium term.

This is probably the most frequent and most debated case. An employee falls ill during their holiday. Do they have the right to recover the days they were sick?

Swiss law’s answer is clear: yes, subject to conditions. The days on which the employee was ill do not count as holiday and must be given back, provided the illness is attested by a medical certificate and actually prevented rest. Mere discomfort or a mild bout of flu does not automatically entitle the employee to carry days over. The burden of proof lies with the employee.

Salary compensation during illness stays the same as during working periods. The employee loses nothing financially, but the employer bears an implicit double burden: the salary paid during the illness, and the need to give those days back later in the year.

To limit ambiguity, it is advisable for the procedure to be clear from the moment the employment contract is signed, or through the internal regulations. When to report the illness. Who to send the certificate to. Within what deadline. This does not change the law, but it reduces operational friction.

Geneva and Vaud do not recognise exactly the same cantonal public holidays (the official list is maintained by the Federal Chancellery), but the principle applies everywhere: an official public holiday that falls during a holiday period is not deducted from the leave balance. The employee recovers the equivalent.

The practical issue arises above all around 1 August, the Geneva Jeûne genevois in September, and certain cantonal festivals. If an employee has booked two weeks including a public holiday, they use only nine days of their balance, not ten.

This is a detail often poorly handled in HR tools or by payroll managers. Checking that the count is done correctly before the summer break avoids challenges when everyone returns.

The Code of Obligations distinguishes additional work (article 321c) from work exceeding the maximum legal working time (article 13 of the Employment Act). For most SME employees, it is article 321c that applies first.

When an employee has worked overtime, the employer may, with the employee’s agreement, compensate it with time off of equal duration. Failing such agreement, the employer must pay for it at the normal salary rate plus at least a quarter, unless there is a written clause to the contrary or a different recognised practice in the sector.

In concrete terms, before the summer, two questions need to be settled. First, is the overtime built up over H1 meant to be taken back as time off or paid? Second, if it is to be taken back as time off, over what period? Many SMEs let this issue drift and find themselves at the end of December with a stock of hours that has not been dealt with.

A written clarification, even a simple one, is enough. It protects the employee, who knows what is owed to them, and the employer, who knows what they are committing to.

Five quick checks, which take half a day in total:

The holiday schedules for the whole team are confirmed and known to everyone. Leave balances have been communicated to employees, with an explicit invitation to use them within the year. The procedure for reporting illness during the holidays is clear and in writing. Cantonal public holidays have been correctly built into the count. The status of accumulated overtime is settled, in agreement with each employee concerned.

On the operational side (calculating balances, integrating public holidays, Swissdec processing, salary certificates in the event of departure over the summer), our HR teams handle the precise accounting as part of our payroll management mandate. On the legal judgement calls (disputed cases, a reasoned refusal of leave, situations of long-term illness), the decision rests with you, the employer. We give you the framework, you make the call.

Swiss employment law is not designed to trap employers. It is designed to structure a relationship which, without a framework, easily drifts towards the arbitrary or the misunderstood. The cases discussed in this article come up every summer in every SME. Those who anticipate them get through them without incident. Those who discover them in the middle of August experience them as problems. The difference is not down to the complexity of the law. It comes down to how rigorously the summer is prepared in June.

The Synergix teams support their clients on these topics all year round. For directors who are just discovering us, the details of our outsourced payroll management are public, and our team is available for an initial discussion.