The guide
Guide to holidays and absences in Switzerland
How many days of holiday should you grant, how do you calculate them for part-time staff, which public holidays apply, what happens to untaken balances? This guide answers the practical questions Swiss SMEs have about leave and absence management.
How many days of holiday by age in Switzerland?
CO 329a sets the legal minimum: five weeks of holiday per year of service up to the age of 20, then four weeks. For an employee working five days a week, that means 25 days, then 20 days. Many employers and collective agreements grant more, for example five weeks from age 50 or six weeks from age 60.
The legal minimum applies without exception: a contract that provides less is void on that point. Numezis applies the age band automatically and switches band in the year the employee turns 20, prorated if your regulations say so. A higher contractual entitlement, set by your regulations or collective agreement, is added on top. Employees can see where each day of their annual entitlement comes from.
How do you calculate holidays for a part-time employee?
A part-time employee is entitled to the same number of weeks of holiday as a full-time one. What changes is the number of days: at 80 % over four days a week, four weeks equal 16 days. If they work five half days, the calculation is done in hours.
The difficulty comes with changes during the year: a move from 100 % to 80 % on 1 November means calculating ten months at 100 % and two months at 80 %. Numezis does this to the day from the effective date in the personnel file, and each request is counted against the actual schedule: an absence booked on a non-working day costs nothing. The displayed balance stays correct, even after several rate changes.
Which public holidays apply in my canton?
1 August is the only federal public holiday. The others are set by the cantons, and sometimes the municipalities: New Year, Good Friday, Ascension, Easter Monday, Whit Monday and Christmas are holidays almost everywhere, but Federal Fast Monday is a holiday in Vaud and not in Geneva, which observes the Geneva Fast on a Thursday, 2 January only in some cantons, and St Joseph’s Day in Ticino and a few Catholic cantons.
The place of work determines the applicable calendar, not the place of residence. Numezis assigns each employee the calendar of their canton of work and automatically deducts these days from holiday requests. For a company with sites in Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, each site keeps its own calendar, with no list to update by hand every year.
What happens to untaken holidays at year end?
Holidays are meant for rest: CO 329d prohibits replacing them with money during the contract, except in exceptional cases such as a very short contract. Untaken days are therefore carried over to the next year. The claim becomes time-barred after five years, but building up large balances creates a financial and organisational risk for the company.
Numezis tracks carry-overs, flags high balances to HR and the manager before year end and lets you set a deadline for taking them under your regulations. At closing, the accrual for untaken holidays is calculated from each employee’s salary and passed to accounting. On departure, the remaining balance is paid out or taken during the notice period, depending on the situation.
How do you replace the leave spreadsheet?
The leave spreadsheet works while the company is small. Beyond twenty or so people, it becomes a source of errors: broken formulas, multiple versions, forgotten public holidays, requests lost in emails. Moving to absence management software happens in three steps.
First, import the balances on the start date, which Numezis can take over from your existing file. Next, define the rules: entitlement by age and seniority, absence types, overlap thresholds, approving managers. Finally, invite employees: they submit requests from the portal or their messaging app, and managers approve in one tap. From the first month, the planner becomes reliable and balances stop being disputed.