How is pay for unused annual leave calculated in Turkey? Timing, formula and example

Friday is the last working day. The exit interview is done, assigned equipment has been returned, and now payroll asks: “How many days of leave are left?” HR’s spreadsheet says 12 days, the note on the employee’s phone says 15. Two days approved by the manager were never entered in the spreadsheet. The final payslip will be based on this figure, and correcting it later is a hassle for both the employee and the company. Using an example, this article explains when pay for unused leave is due to a departing employee under Turkish law, how it is calculated and how to confirm the balance during the exit process.

Pay for unused annual leave is the payment made when an employment contract ends for the annual leave the employee has earned but not used, calculated on the wage applicable on the date the contract ends (Article 59 of Labour Law No. 4857). It is paid to the employee or, if the employee dies, to their beneficiaries.

When is pay for unused annual leave due?

The law requires only that the contract ends “for any reason”; it makes no distinction between dismissal by the employer, resignation or retirement (Art. 59). When the contract ends, the employee’s wage and all monetary benefits arising from the contract and the law must also be paid in full (Art. 32). In practice, leave pay is included in the final payroll, so the balance must be settled before the last day. When the employer terminates the contract, notice periods and job-search leave cannot overlap with annual leave (Art. 59 and Art. 6 of the Annual Paid Leave Regulation): it is not possible to fit the remaining leave into the notice period to avoid paying it.

If the contract ends before earned leave has been taken and the leave is not paid out, the law provides for an administrative fine on the employer for each employee affected (Art. 103); the employee can also claim the amount within the limitation period (Art. 59). Check the current fine amount on mevzuat.gov.tr. In short, an amount not paid on the day of departure is not something you can file under “we’ll sort it out later”.

How is pay for unused annual leave calculated?

1. List the leave earned year by year: 14, 20 or 26 days (statutory minimums) for each entitlement anniversary, plus any extra under the contract.
2. Deduct the days used, based on the signed leave record or approved requests.
3. Find the remaining days. Only earned leave counts.
4. Determine the wage on the date the contract ends; if there was a pay rise, the increased wage applies.
5. Calculate the daily wage: for monthly-paid employees the monthly wage is usually divided by 30; confirm your payroll practice.
6. Multiply by the remaining days; the gross-to-net calculation and deductions are done in payroll.

The law refers to periods “earned but not used”. We found no provision on pro rata leave pay for a service year that has not yet been completed, so on departure only entitlements that have already arisen are included.

Worked example: an employee who started on 2 March 2020

A fictional example: the employee started on 2 March 2020, left on 10 September 2026 and earns a gross monthly wage of 36,000 lira. Up to and including the fifth year of service they earn 14 days a year; from the sixth year on, 20 days. The figures only illustrate the logic of the calculation.

The daily wage is 36,000 ÷ 30 = 1,200 lira, and the gross amount payable is 12 × 1,200 = 14,400 lira. If there was a pay rise, the wage on the date the contract ended is used, not the wage of earlier years. Which deductions bring the amount to net is a matter for payroll and your accountant.

If the employee says “I have 15 days”, it is enough to look for the difference in three places: days counted as used (weekly rest days and public holidays are not counted as leave), entitlement dates (has absence shifted the date?) and approved requests that were never recorded. If all three are written in the records, agreement is quick; if not, each side defends its own calculation.

Which pay components are included?

How do you track remaining leave when an employee leaves?

Completing this list before the last day spares you surprises on payroll day:

• Last working day and the date the contract ends
• Start date and any time served at the same employer’s other workplaces
• Each entitlement date and that year’s leave days
• Leave used: signed leave record or approved requests
• Requests awaiting approval or not yet entered in the calendar
• Leave used or planned during the notice period
• Wage on the date the contract ends and date of the last pay rise
• A written breakdown of the calculation and a copy given to the employee

Tracking exits with Excel and WhatsApp: where do mistakes creep in?

In a small company, on the last day the figure is taken from HR’s Excel file, and it is usually right. The error hides in leave that was never recorded: a day the manager approved verbally, a “don’t come in tomorrow” message sent on WhatsApp, a paper form never entered in the spreadsheet. When the employee disputes the figure with their own note, the evidential value of your spreadsheet depends on whether each row is backed by an approval. The amount paid on departure can also end up in court years later; if there is no record showing how the balance was reached on that day, you will have to rebuild the calculation. That is why recording leave movements in one place throughout the year is safer than a single lump calculation left until the last day: the balance is not reconstructed at exit but read from the record, and behind each row there is a request and an approval.

Seeing the current leave balance during the exit process

In YazSis KurumsalPortal, departures in the Onboarding & Offboarding Management module run on an exit checklist: return of assigned equipment, closing accounts and access, and exit documents are assigned as separate steps to HR, IT, administration and managers, and the process closes in a controlled way when these steps are complete. In the Mobile Leave Management module, requests are checked against the remaining balance, approved leave is entered in the calendar and the balance is updated; leave records can also be exported as XLSX reports.

We suggest adding a “confirm leave balance” step to your exit checklist; because both modules run in the same portal, the current figure to check is read from the leave records. The portal does not calculate payroll: you transfer the amount you calculate into your payroll process yourself. If data needs to flow to a time and attendance or payroll system, which data is shared and how is worked out together during the project.

To link exit steps to a checklist, you can look at the Onboarding & Offboarding Management page.