Postponement of annual leave in the public service: the rules are changing

As a reminder, active public servants are entitled, for a full year of service of 1^er January to December 31, paid annual leave equal to 5 times their weekly service obligations (for example, you are entitled to 25 days of annual leave if you work full time 5 days a week).

The annual leave decrees state that leave not taken as of December 31 may be carried forward to the following year, but only with the exceptional authorization of the employer administration.

In addition, compensation for unused annual leave was provided for only those contract staff members who had not been able to take all their annual leave before the end of their contract because of service requirements.

However, these provisions were not in line with the European directives which provide for a right to defer annual leave not taken due to health, parental or family responsibilities, and the award of compensation at the end of the employment relationship, where this is not possible.

In order to put national law into compliance with EU law, one decree of 21 june 2025 sets out the principle of:

• on the one hand, the right to carry over annual leave acquired and not exercised by reason of leave for reasons of health, accident at work or service, occupational disease or leave related to parental or family responsibilities;
• and, secondly, compensation for annual leave not taken at the end of the employment relationship where that deferral is not possible.

Thus, any public official who cannot take all or part of his annual leave because of leave for health reasons or leave related to parental and family responsibilities, can now benefit from the extension of this leave over a period of 15 months.

Leave for health reasons or for parental and family responsibilities includes:

• Sick leave, long-term sick leave, long-term sick leave.
• Leave for temporary invalidity attributable to the official's service (Citis) or leave for the contract worker's occupational disease.
• Ex officio availability for health reasons of the official or unpaid sick leave of the contractor.
• Maternity or adoption leave.
• Birth or adoption leave.
• Paternity and childcare leave.
• Parental leave.
• Family solidarity leave.
• Caregiver leave.
• Parental leave.
• Unpaid leave to travel overseas or abroad to adopt one or more children.