There are several public holidays in the Netherlands. However, there is no statutory obligation for employers to give their employees leave on public holidays. A Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) may stipulate otherwise.
Holiday entitlement in the Netherlands continues to accrue while an employee takes other types of work leave (see 3.5) as long as it is not unpaid leave. During unpaid leave no holidays are accrued.
Statutory minimum holiday entitlement
The legal minimum number of vacation days is at least four times the number of days per week that an employee works (rijksoverheid.nl).
This calculation can be applied to the number of hours in a working week multiplied by four to arrive at the annual leave entitlement in hours. Under Dutch law, an employee can take their leave in hours if they wish.
An employee working
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Web page updated on 17 Mar 2025 14:49