Annual leave in Colombia: how many days and how it is paid
Annual leave in Colombia: how many days and how it is paid
Fifteen business days. That is the short answer to how many vacation days accrue per year worked in Colombia, and it is also the source of almost every payroll error: they are confused with fifteen calendar days, they are calculated on a salary that includes the transport allowance, and they are paid in cash when the law does not allow it. Here is how the right accrues, how it is counted on a calendar, what the calculation base is, how far it can be accumulated and when it may be compensated, with two complete worked examples —one for taking the leave and one for the final settlement— so you can replicate the calculation in your company without guessing.
What annual leave is and how it differs from a permission
A permission is granted. It comes from a specific need of the employee or from a decision of the employer, it lasts as long as the matter lasts and it leaves no balance in anyone's favour. Annual leave is not granted: it accrues. It is generated by time worked, taking it is mandatory, and it has its own rules for counting, payment, accumulation and compensation. Confusing the two figures is the underlying mistake, because it leads to treating leave as a favour rather than as a benefit with a calculation.
Three practical consequences follow. First: annual leave is paid, and it is paid before the employee leaves. Second: it cannot be exchanged for money while the contract is in force, because rest is the purpose of the right and not an accessory. Third: the contract is not suspended during the leave, so the employee remains employed, keeps seniority and keeps accruing the other entitlements.
| Aspect | Permission | Annual leave |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Agreement or authorisation from the employer | Right accrued through time worked |
| Payment | No payment of its own; salary continues or is deducted as applicable | Paid before the leave, for the days that apply |
| Counting | As agreed | Business days, not calendar days |
| Accumulation | Not applicable | Up to two periods by written agreement |
| Cash instead of rest | Not applicable | Forbidden during the employment relationship |
| Effect on the contract | Suspension or interruption as applicable | The contract remains in force and seniority keeps running |
How many days: 15 business days, which is three weeks
The baseline rule is fifteen business days for each year of service, equivalent to three weeks. The word that decides everything is "business". Fifteen business days are not fifteen days of absence: they are fifteen working days that are not worked, and since weekends fall between them, the period takes three full calendar weeks.
That is why an employee who "takes fifteen days" and comes back on day sixteen actually rested eleven working days and still has four pending. The company believes it complied, the employee believes the leave was taken, and the balance shows up months later in a settlement or a claim. Counting in business days is also the reason a public holiday falling inside the period is not deducted from the balance: it does not consume a business day, it only moves the return date.
How to count business days with a calendar in hand
Suppose the period starts on Monday, 2 March. The first week consumes five working days (Monday to Friday), the second another five and the third the remaining five. Day fifteen is Friday, 20 March and the employee returns on Monday, 23 March. Fifteen business days, twenty-one calendar days.
Now suppose Wednesday, 11 March is a public holiday. That day is not a business day, so it does not consume balance: the fifteen working days are completed on Monday, 23 March and the return moves to Tuesday, 24 March. The employee rested exactly the same, but the return date changed. If the company settles by calendar days, that holiday costs a day of balance and nobody notices.
When it accrues and what happens in the first year
The right accrues after one year of service. Before that first year there is no leave to take, although the time worked is already generating the right: if the contract ends before twelve months are completed, that time is recognised as proportional leave in the settlement. It is not lost, it is paid.
Accrual is annual and by periods: on completing the first year the first period of fifteen business days accrues, on completing the second year the next one accrues, and so on. That is why the right question is not "how many days does he have" but "how many periods has he accrued and which ones has he already taken". An employee with four years and only one period taken has three periods pending, and that balance is a certain obligation, not a courtesy that can be forgotten.
Nothing prevents a company from granting more days through internal policy or a collective agreement; that is an improvement on the minimum, not the general rule. What is not possible is granting fewer, or splitting the rest into loose days without control, because then the balance becomes impossible to audit.
The calculation base: ordinary salary, without the transport allowance
Annual leave is calculated on the employee's ordinary salary. The transport allowance is not part of that base, unlike severance pay and the service bonus, where it is included. It is a frequently forgotten asymmetry that produces silent overpayments: the provision becomes inflated, the payment for the leave becomes inflated, and the difference only appears when someone compares the allowance with the base used.
If the salary is variable —commissions, piecework, pay by productivity— the average of the last year of service is used. It is not the best month, nor the previous month, nor the average of the last three: the average of the last year. And if there are payments that do not constitute salary, they stay out of the base for the same reason as the transport allowance: they are not ordinary salary.
| Item | Annual leave | Severance | Service bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary salary | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Transport allowance | No | Yes | Yes |
| Variable salary | Average of the last year | Average of the last year | Average of the last year |
| Payments that are not salary | No | No | No |
Accumulation: two periods in writing and nothing more
Leave can be accumulated for up to two periods by written agreement between the parties. Beyond that cap a special authorisation is required, and without it the accumulation has no support even if the employee agrees. A verbal agreement is useless: if it is not in writing, in a review it does not exist.
Accumulating is not free either. Each accumulated period is a liability that grows, rest that is deferred and a risk that the employee reaches the end of the contract with a large balance the company did not provision for. When the accumulated balance exceeds two periods, it is worth asking why: usually it is not a decision, it is a scheduling oversight.
Cash compensation: only when the contract ends
During the employment relationship leave is not compensated in cash. Rest is mandatory and not negotiable: exchanging fifteen business days for their cash value distorts the right, even if both parties agree and even if the employee asks for it in writing. Compensation only applies when the contract ends, and at that point accrued leave that has not been taken is paid.
| Situation | Is it compensated in cash? | What applies |
|---|---|---|
| The employee asks for money and keeps working | No | Schedule the rest; payment is made before the leave |
| The employee resigns | Yes | Accrued leave not taken plus proportional days of the last period |
| Termination decided by the employer | Yes | Accrued leave not taken plus proportional days of the last period |
| The employee falls ill during the leave | Not applicable | The case is reviewed: sick leave is not annual leave |
Proportional leave when the contract ends
When the contract ends before the year is completed, the time worked is paid in proportion. The formula is simple: fifteen business days multiplied by the months worked and divided by twelve. The result is expressed in business days and paid at one thirtieth of the monthly salary per day.
The calculation has two parts that must not be mixed. First, how many business days accrued in the last, incomplete period. Then, the value of each day. If there are also earlier periods accrued and not taken, those are added in full, with no proration, because they had already accrued. Adding everything up and prorating the whole is the mistake that most underestimates a settlement.
Example of leave taken: fifteen business days on the calendar
An employee with a monthly salary of $3,000,000 completes the first year of service and takes the leave. Fifteen business days apply, that is, three weeks. The payment is half a month of salary: $1,500,000, and it is transferred before the rest begins, not after.
The daily value is obtained by dividing the monthly salary by thirty: $3,000,000 / 30 = $100,000. Fifteen business days at $100,000 give $1,500,000. Note that the calculation uses a thirty-day base even though the rest takes twenty-one calendar days: the payment corresponds to the business days accrued, not to the days the employee was out of the office.
If the period starts on Monday, 2 March and there are no holidays, the fifteen working days are used up on Friday, 20 March and the return is Monday, 23 March. If Wednesday, 11 March is a holiday, the return moves to Tuesday, 24 March and the payment does not change, because the holiday did not consume balance. That detail is what separates correct scheduling from an undue deduction.
Example of a final settlement: resignation at eight months
The same employee, with a salary of $3,000,000, resigns after eight months and has not taken any leave. The year was not completed, so there is no accrued period, but there is a proportional right. The calculation goes step by step.
First, the days: fifteen business days times eight months, divided by twelve. Fifteen times eight is one hundred and twenty; one hundred and twenty divided by twelve is ten business days. Second, the daily value: $3,000,000 divided by thirty, that is $100,000. Third, the payment: ten days at $100,000, one million pesos. The leave settlement for that contract is $1,000,000.
If the employee had also had a previous full period not taken, the calculation would be different: fifteen full business days ($1,500,000) plus the ten proportional days ($1,000,000), for a total of $2,500,000. The difference between the two scenarios is not a calculation detail: it is the reason the leave balance must be up to date before signing any settlement.
Monthly provision: the expense accrues before the leave
Paying for leave is not an expense of the month in which it is transferred: it is an expense that accrues month by month while the employee works. That is why it is provisioned. With a salary of $3,000,000, the monthly provision is $3,000,000 times 4.17%, that is $125,100. That percentage comes from fifteen days over a base of three hundred and sixty: fifteen divided by three hundred and sixty is 4.1666%, rounded to 4.17%.
Twelve months of provision at $125,100 give $1,501,200, against an actual payment of $1,500,000. The $1,200 difference is the effect of rounding the percentage and is not an error: it appears because 4.17% is an approximation. What matters is that the provision and the payment are reconciled at the end of the period, and that the provision is recalculated when the salary changes, because otherwise the liability falls out of date.
In accounting, the provision is an expense against a liability, not a payment: no money leaves the bank account until the day the leave is transferred. When a company does not provision, the full expense hits the month the employee leaves and the result of the period is distorted exactly when it has to be explained.
Frequent mistakes and how to detect them
Almost every leave problem repeats in four or five patterns. The following table crosses the symptom with the cause and the consequence, so the review is quick.
| Symptom | Usual cause | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| The employee rested eleven working days and fifteen were deducted | Settled by calendar days | Balance in the employee's favour and a later claim |
| The leave payment exceeds half a month of salary | The transport allowance was included in the base | Overpayment and inflated provision |
| Money was paid instead of scheduling the rest | The right was treated as paid permission | Benefit improperly extinguished and exposure in a review |
| Three accumulated periods with no support | No written agreement and no scheduled rest | Unsupported accumulation and a growing liability |
| The final settlement comes out lower than expected | The proportional days of the last period were omitted | Incomplete payment and a difference owed to the employee |
The most useful control is simple: one report per employee with periods accrued, periods taken, balance in business days and accumulated provision. If that report does not exist, any discussion about leave is settled with somebody's memory, and memory is not accounting support.
An honest closing before deciding
This article sets out the mechanism; it does not resolve particular cases. There are situations where the calculation changes and should be confirmed before settling: variable salaries with irregular commissions, employees on an integrated salary, contracts ending mid-period, periods accumulated from previous years and internal agreements granting more days than the law. In all those cases the right answer is to review the support and consult the accountant, not to apply the general formula out of habit.
It does not replace legal advice either. What a company can do is stop treating leave as a last-minute formality: if the balance lives in the same system where payroll accrues, the report of pending periods and the provision stop depending on a spreadsheet and the month-end close becomes verifiable. That is the operational side of the problem, and it is where payroll and accounting software such as Kardex Tauro keeps the calculation from being rebuilt by hand every time.
