German leave and sick pay run on two statutes plus the social code:
- Holidays (BUrlG): at least 24 Werktage of paid holiday a year — measured against a six-day week, so 20 working days on a five-day week
- Sick pay (EntgFG): the employer continues 100% of regular pay for up to six weeks per incapacity, once the employment has lasted four weeks
- After six weeks: the statutory Krankenkasse takes over with Krankengeld — 70% of regular gross, capped at 90% of net, generally up to 78 weeks within three years for the same illness
- Duties: the employee must notify immediately; beyond three calendar days a doctor's certificate is required — retrieved electronically (eAU) for statutorily insured employees
- U1: employers with no more than 30 employees are reimbursed 80% of continued sick pay through the U1 levy scheme
The statutory holiday minimum: 24 Werktage
The Bundesurlaubsgesetz opens with the entitlement itself: „Jeder Arbeitnehmer hat in jedem Kalenderjahr Anspruch auf bezahlten Erholungsurlaub" — every employee is entitled to paid recreational leave in every calendar year (§ 1 BUrlG). The amount follows in § 3(1): „Der Urlaub beträgt jährlich mindestens 24 Werktage" — holiday amounts to at least 24 Werktage a year.
The catch is the unit. § 3(2) defines Werktage as „alle Kalendertage, die nicht Sonn- oder gesetzliche Feiertage sind" — all calendar days that are not Sundays or public holidays. That is a Monday-to-Saturday, six-day week. So the statutory minimum is four weeks of holiday, and on the usual five-day week those four weeks are 20 working days. The Minijob-Zentrale spells out the conversion formula: „Anzahl der Arbeitstage pro Woche x 24 : 6" — days worked per week × 24 ÷ 6. Five days a week gives 20 days; someone working two days a week gets eight.
Days are what count, not hours — the Minijob-Zentrale again: „Entscheidend ist dabei nicht, wie viele Stunden der Minijobber arbeitet, sondern an wie vielen Tagen" (what matters is not how many hours someone works, but on how many days). And the 24 Werktage are a floor — the statute says mindestens (at least). Employment contracts and collective agreements routinely grant more, and part-time employees and minijobbers must be treated equally: if full-timers get more than the minimum, so do they.
The statute counts Werktage (Mon–Sat); payroll systems track Arbeitstage (days the employee actually works). Convert before configuring leave balances: 24 Werktage is four weeks, so a five-day pattern gets 20 days, a four-day pattern 16. Loading 24 into a five-day-week balance silently over-grants a week of leave.
Carry-over and expiry: the 31 March window
§ 7(3) BUrlG is strict on timing: „Der Urlaub muß im laufenden Kalenderjahr gewährt und genommen werden" — holiday must be granted and taken in the current calendar year. Carry-over to the next year is only permissible „wenn dringende betriebliche oder in der Person des Arbeitnehmers liegende Gründe dies rechtfertigen" — where urgent operational reasons, or reasons in the employee's person, justify it. Carried-over leave must then be granted and taken „in den ersten drei Monaten des folgenden Kalenderjahrs" — in the first three months of the following calendar year, i.e. by 31 March.
When employment ends with holiday still owing, § 7(4) requires a payout: „Kann der Urlaub wegen Beendigung des Arbeitsverhältnisses ganz oder teilweise nicht mehr gewährt werden, so ist er abzugelten" — leave that can no longer be granted because the employment has ended must be compensated in money (the Urlaubsabgeltung).
Read § 7(3) with care: German and European courts have refined how far leave really lapses. Broadly, statutory leave does not expire — at year-end or on 31 March — if the employer never put the employee in a position to take it: asked them to take the leave and warned, clearly and in good time, that it would otherwise be lost. Treat "expired" balances as a legal question, not a bookkeeping default, and take advice before writing them off.
Sick pay: six weeks on the employer, at full pay
The six-week rule sits in § 3(1) of the Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz: „Wird ein Arbeitnehmer durch Arbeitsunfähigkeit infolge Krankheit an seiner Arbeitsleistung verhindert, ohne daß ihn ein Verschulden trifft, so hat er Anspruch auf Entgeltfortzahlung im Krankheitsfall durch den Arbeitgeber für die Zeit der Arbeitsunfähigkeit bis zur Dauer von sechs Wochen." An employee prevented from working by illness-related incapacity, through no fault of their own, is entitled to continued remuneration from the employer for up to six weeks.
The level is full pay. § 4(1) EntgFG requires the employer to continue „das ihm bei der für ihn maßgebenden regelmäßigen Arbeitszeit zustehende Arbeitsentgelt" — the remuneration the employee would have earned at their regular working hours. In other words, 100% of regular pay, as if they had worked.
Two boundaries to build into payroll:
- The four-week wait. § 3(3) EntgFG: „Der Anspruch nach Absatz 1 entsteht nach vierwöchiger ununterbrochener Dauer des Arbeitsverhältnisses" — the entitlement arises only after four weeks of uninterrupted employment. (In that first month, statutorily insured employees look to their Krankenkasse instead.)
- Same illness, same clock. The six weeks attach to the incapacity, not the calendar year — but repeat absences for the same underlying illness are aggregated. The Minijob-Zentrale puts it plainly: „Dieser Anspruch vermindert sich, wenn Sie Ihrem Minijobber wegen derselben Krankheit bereits seinen Lohn fortgezahlt haben" — the entitlement is reduced where pay has already been continued for the same illness. A fresh entitlement for the same illness only re-arises in the circumstances § 3(1) EntgFG defines, so payroll needs illness-episode tracking, not just a day counter.
After six weeks: the Krankenkasse takes over
Once the employer's six weeks are exhausted, the employee does not fall off a cliff — for members of statutory health insurance, Krankengeld (sickness benefit) from the Krankenkasse takes over. The entitlement comes from § 44(1) SGB V: insured persons are entitled to Krankengeld „wenn die Krankheit sie arbeitsunfähig macht" — when illness makes them unable to work — and it arises, for ordinary cases, from the day the incapacity is medically determined (§ 46 SGB V).
The reason the Krankenkasse doesn't pay during the first six weeks is § 49(1) Nr. 1 SGB V: the Krankengeld claim rests — „Der Anspruch auf Krankengeld ruht, soweit und solange Versicherte beitragspflichtiges Arbeitsentgelt oder Arbeitseinkommen erhalten" — for as long as the insured is still receiving contributory pay. While the employer continues wages under the EntgFG, Krankengeld is suspended; when continued pay ends, it starts flowing. That is the whole handover mechanism.
The benefit itself (§ 47(1) SGB V): „Das Krankengeld beträgt 70 vom Hundert des erzielten regelmäßigen Arbeitsentgelts und Arbeitseinkommens, soweit es der Beitragsberechnung unterliegt (Regelentgelt)" — 70% of regular contributory pay, and it „darf 90 vom Hundert des … Nettoarbeitsentgelts nicht übersteigen" — capped at 90% of net pay. Duration (§ 48(1) SGB V): for the same illness, at most „achtundsiebzig Wochen innerhalb von je drei Jahren" — 78 weeks within any three-year period, counted from the day the incapacity began (the employer's six weeks count into those 78).
From week seven of a continuous absence, the employee typically comes off the payroll for that absence: the employer's Entgeltfortzahlung stops and the Krankenkasse pays Krankengeld directly. Krankengeld is a statutory-health-insurance benefit under SGB V — the employer's six-week duty under the EntgFG, by contrast, applies to employees regardless of how they are insured.
Notification duties and the eAU
§ 5(1) EntgFG splits the employee's duties in two. First, notice: the employee must „die Arbeitsunfähigkeit und deren voraussichtliche Dauer unverzüglich mitzuteilen" — report the incapacity and its expected duration immediately. Second, proof: if the incapacity lasts longer than three calendar days, a doctor's certificate of the incapacity and its expected duration is due „spätestens an dem darauffolgenden Arbeitstag" — at the latest on the working day that follows. The employer „ist berechtigt, die Vorlage der ärztlichen Bescheinigung früher zu verlangen" — is entitled to require the certificate earlier, even from day one. If the absence runs past the certified end date, a follow-up certificate is required.
For employees insured with a statutory Krankenkasse, § 5(1a) EntgFG switches off the paper hand-in: they no longer present a certificate to the employer, but must still have the incapacity and its expected duration medically determined at the same points in time and have a certificate issued to them. The certificate data then travels electronically — the eAU (elektronische Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung): the doctor's practice transmits it to the employee's Krankenkasse, and the Krankenkasse makes „eine Meldung zum Abruf für den Arbeitgeber" — a notice for retrieval by the employer — available with the employee's name, the start and end of the incapacity, the date of the medical determination and whether it is a first or follow-up certificate (§ 109 SGB IV). Payroll and HR systems collect that notice electronically from the fund; no yellow slip changes hands. § 5(1a) carves out two cases where paper still rules: minijobbers in private households, and certificates from doctors outside the statutory panel system.
The duty to notify the employer unverzüglich — immediately, on day one — is untouched by the eAU. Electronic retrieval replaces only the hand-in of the certificate. An absent employee who never calls in is still in breach of § 5(1), however smoothly the eAU data arrives later.
U1: small employers get most of it back
Six weeks of full pay is a heavy exposure for a small business, and the law compensates for exactly that. Under § 1(1) of the Aufwendungsausgleichsgesetz (AAG), the health funds reimburse employers „die … nicht mehr als 30 Arbeitnehmer und Arbeitnehmerinnen beschäftigen, 80 Prozent" of the remuneration continued under the EntgFG — employers with no more than 30 employees (trainees and apprentices are left out of the count) get 80% of continued sick pay back, plus the employer social-insurance contributions that sat on it. This is the U1 scheme (Umlage 1).
It is an insurance-style pool, not a subsidy: participating employers fund it through a separate levy on pay — the U1 umlage — set as a percentage of the pay on which pension contributions are assessed (§ 7 AAG). The Minijob-Zentrale's Arbeitgeberversicherung shows the shape of it for minijobs: a U1 contribution of 0.8% of the minijobber's pay buys reimbursement of 80% of continued sick pay, and its guidance confirms the scope — „Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen nehmen alle Arbeitgeber am U1-Verfahren teil, die nicht mehr als 30 Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer beschäftigen" (rates and wording as published by the Minijob-Zentrale, retrieved July 2026). For the general workforce, U1 runs through each employee's own Krankenkasse, whose statutes govern the mechanics — confirm your umlage and reimbursement rates with the funds you actually pay into.
Alongside U1 sits U2, which reimburses maternity-protection costs in full — and unlike U1, it applies to all employers regardless of size: „Die Umlage 2 ist immer Pflicht – unabhängig von der Betriebsgröße" (Minijob-Zentrale).
Quick answers
What is the statutory minimum holiday in Germany?
At least 24 Werktage of paid holiday per calendar year under the BUrlG. Werktage are all calendar days except Sundays and public holidays — a six-day week — so on the usual five-day week the minimum is 20 working days. Days per week count, not hours: pro-rate with days per week × 24 ÷ 6.
Who pays when an employee is off sick — and for how long?
The employer pays 100% of regular pay for up to six weeks per incapacity (§§ 3–4 EntgFG), once the employment has lasted four uninterrupted weeks. After six weeks, the employee's statutory Krankenkasse pays Krankengeld — 70% of regular gross, capped at 90% of net — generally up to 78 weeks within three years for the same illness.
When does a sick employee have to provide a doctor's certificate?
Notification of the incapacity and its expected duration is due immediately (unverzüglich). A doctor's certificate is required if the incapacity lasts longer than three calendar days — by the following working day at the latest — and the employer may demand it earlier. For statutorily insured employees the certificate is electronic (eAU): the practice sends the data to the Krankenkasse and the employer retrieves it electronically instead of receiving a paper note.
Can unused holiday be carried over into the next year?
Only as an exception — where urgent operational reasons or reasons in the employee's person justify it (§ 7(3) BUrlG). Carried-over leave must be taken in the first three months of the following year, i.e. by 31 March. Courts have refined actual expiry: leave broadly doesn't lapse automatically if the employer never asked the employee to take it and warned it would be lost. On termination, untaken leave is paid out (§ 7(4) BUrlG).
Six-week clocks and Werktage conversion, built in
Ledra Pay tracks BUrlG entitlements in the employee's actual working pattern with the Werktage conversion done for you, runs the EntgFG six-week window per illness episode rather than per calendar year, marks the Krankengeld handover cleanly in the pay run, and keeps the U1 reimbursement picture straight for small employers — with an auditable evidence chain behind every figure.
See German payroll →Government sources
- Bundesurlaubsgesetz — § 1 BUrlG (entitlement), § 3 BUrlG (24 Werktage; definition of Werktage), § 7 BUrlG (timing, carry-over, payout on termination).
- Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz — § 3 EntgFG (six weeks; four-week wait), § 4 EntgFG (level: regular pay), § 5 EntgFG (notification and certificate duties; eAU).
- SGB V — § 44 (Krankengeld entitlement), § 46 (when it arises), § 47 (70% of Regelentgelt, 90%-of-net cap), § 48 (78 weeks in three years), § 49 (Krankengeld rests while pay continues).
- SGB IV — § 109 (the Krankenkasse's retrieval notice of incapacity data for the employer — the eAU's employer leg).
- Aufwendungsausgleichsgesetz — § 1 AAG (80% reimbursement for employers with no more than 30 employees; U2 in full), § 7 AAG (the U1/U2 umlagen).
- Minijob-Zentrale — Urlaubsanspruch im Minijob (24 Werktage, six-day-week yardstick, conversion formula).
- Minijob-Zentrale — Lohnfortzahlung und Sonderzahlungen (six weeks of continued pay; four-week wait; same-illness reduction).
- Minijob-Zentrale — Arbeitgeberversicherung im Gewerbe (U1: 80% reimbursement, ≤ 30-employee scope, umlage rates).
- BMAS — Bundesurlaubsgesetz and Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz (statute overview pages).