New holiday law

On 1 September 2020, the new Holiday Act came into force. This means that the Danish holiday system went from being based on a staggered earning principle to the fact that people now take holidays simultaneous as the days are earned.

Earning a holiday 

You are entitled to 5 weeks holiday per. holiday year, which runs from 1 September to 31 August. This corresponds to you earning 2.08 days' holiday with pay per. month.

Holidays according to the new holiday law 

All holiday days that have not been used before 1 September 2020 will be transferred to the new holiday scheme and can be used during the new holiday period.

The new holiday period is from 1 September to 31 December of the following calendar year. 

The reason why there is a difference between the earning year and the holding period is to provide more flexibility. If you want to take more holiday than you have yet earned, you can either use any holiday that has been transferred from previous holiday years, or agree with your employer that you take holiday in advance.

Holidays in advance are part of the new Holiday Act and require an agreement between the employee and the employer. This means that you can take a holiday with pay that has not yet been earned.

If you resign before you have managed to earn a holiday corresponding to the holiday taken, the employer will be able to set off the holiday in your salary.

Transition from old to new holiday law 

The transition period started on 1 September 2019 and ran until 31 August 2020.

During the transition period, the earned holiday was frozen in the fund "Employees' Holiday Funds", and this holiday pay will in principle only be paid at retirement age, or on the day you leave the labor market. Please note that in connection with COVID-19, political agreements have been made that the frozen holiday can be paid out.

Your employer had a deadline for reporting your earned frozen holiday on 31 December 2020. You will therefore be able to see your frozen holiday on borger.dk.

It is not possible to contribute funds to the fund yet. However, the employer can, for example, for retired employees pay in frozen holiday funds via FerieKonto, which will then transfer the funds to the fund when it opens for payments. In this way, the employer can finally settle receivables for resigned employees. However, this means that tax and AM contributions are settled from the funds.

In addition to the above settlement option, the employer may choose not to pay the reported holiday funds into the fund, but may instead choose to leave the money in the company until it is to be paid out when the employee in question retires.