Annual Leave Calculation: MOM Rules, Carry-Forward and Payout

Annual leave calculation in Singapore starts from one table in the Employment Act: after 3 months with you, an employee gets 7 days of paid annual leave in the first year of service, one more day for each further year, and 14 days from the eighth year. Part years are pro-rated by completed months, and leave unused when someone leaves is paid at the gross rate of pay, unless they are dismissed for misconduct.

The harder question comes at year end, when many leave years close on 31 December: what happens to days left over? For lower-paid staff MOM's answer is fixed: unused leave must be allowed to carry forward for 12 months, and only then can it be forfeited. For everyone else, the employment contract decides.

How many days of annual leave does the Employment Act give?

MOM's annual leave eligibility and entitlement page (last updated 17 April 2023) sets the minimum by year of service, counted from the employee's first day:

• 1st year: 7 days
• 2nd year: 8 days
• 3rd year: 9 days
• 4th year: 10 days
• 5th year: 11 days
• 6th year: 12 days
• 7th year: 13 days
• 8th year and after: 14 days

Employees can apply for leave only after 3 months of service. The Act covers local and foreign employees on any contract of service, according to MOM's page on who the Employment Act covers (updated 24 July 2025); seafarers, domestic workers, statutory board employees and civil servants are outside it. Managers and executives are inside the Act, so the table applies to them, but they are excluded from its Part 4, which matters for carrying leave forward.

Contracts can give more than the minimum, and the types of leave are one of MOM's required key employment terms.

How is pro-rated annual leave calculated?

For part years, MOM pro-rates on completed months:

1. Count the completed months of service in the current year. Part months do not count: 14 March to 31 July is 4 completed months in MOM's example.
2. Divide by 12 and multiply by the yearly entitlement.
3. Round: a fraction under one half goes down, one half or more goes up to a full day. MOM's example: 4 ÷ 12 × 10 days = 3.33, so 3 days.

Three details catch employers out. Pro-rating applies even during probation. Approved unpaid leave is excluded: in MOM's example, 1 day of unpaid leave a month from January to April leaves 3 completed months, not 4. And a notice period counts: in MOM's example, an employee entitled to 12 days who took 2 weeks' unpaid leave in March and resigned on 1 August with 1 month's notice earns 7 days. MOM's pro-rated leave calculator is on the same page.

Part-timers (under 35 hours a week) are pro-rated in hours. MOM's leave page for part-time employees (updated 20 August 2024) shows someone working 20 hours a week, against a 44-hour full-timer with 8-hour days and 7 days' leave, earning 25.5 hours. Their leave can be encashed into the hourly rate only if the contract says so, and never for someone working at least 5 days and 30 to 34 hours a week.

Can unused annual leave be carried forward or forfeited?

MOM's annual leave in special situations page (updated 24 July 2025) splits staff in two:

• Covered by Part 4 (a workman earning a monthly basic salary of S$4,500 or less, or any other employee earning S$2,600 or less): you must let unused annual leave carry forward to the next 12 months. In MOM's example, leave for January to December 2022 carries into 2023 and can be forfeited if not used by 31 December 2023. Applying that example to a calendar leave year (our reading), leave carried from 2025 can be forfeited if unused by 31 December 2026.
• Outside Part 4, including all managers and executives: the contract decides whether unused leave is encashed, carried forward or forfeited. The contract also governs days above the statutory entitlement, for both groups.

Basic salary here excludes overtime, bonuses, the AWS and all allowances; a workman does mainly manual work, such as cleaners, construction workers, machine operators and van drivers on MOM's list.

Statutory leave can also be forfeited after unexcused absence on more than 20% of working days, or on dismissal for misconduct, and MOM says you need not encash the leave of someone absent for more than 2 working days in a row without approval. Leave taken beyond the entitlement counts as unpaid leave, deductible from salary.

What do you pay for unused leave when someone leaves?

Unless the termination is for misconduct, MOM's termination with notice page (updated 22 April 2026) says you must pay unused annual leave at the gross rate of pay, based on the last drawn salary.

For a monthly-rated employee, MOM's monthly and daily salary page (updated 8 December 2025) gives the daily gross rate as 12 × monthly gross rate of pay ÷ (52 × average working days a week). Gross pay includes contractual allowances but excludes overtime, bonuses, the AWS, productivity incentives and travel, food and housing allowances. Our salary in lieu of notice calculator uses the same daily rate.

Two choices change the amount: an employee who clears leave during the notice period, with your approval, is paid for the full notice; if you agree instead to offset notice with leave, the last day moves earlier and those days are not paid. Our notice period guide compares the two. MOM's paying salary page (updated 30 January 2026) says someone who resigns and serves notice is paid on the last day, and that for a foreign employee you must withhold money due, including leave pay, for tax clearance for up to 30 days.

Worked example: a year-end leave count (illustrative)

A fictional bakery café in Tampines, run by Mrs Tan, counts leave by calendar year, as MOM's carry-forward example does. On 30 October 2026 she checks four people:

• Ravi, kitchen assistant, started 1 March 2026. By 31 December he has 10 completed months: 10 ÷ 12 × 7 = 5.83, rounded up to 6 days. He could apply for leave only from June.
• Mei Ling, admin executive, fourth year, S$3,200 basic. Entitled to 10 days, 6 used. Outside Part 4 (not a workman, above S$2,600), so her contract decides; in this example it allows up to 5 days to 30 June, so her 4 days go forward.
• Hafiz, delivery van driver, ninth year, S$2,800 basic. A workman at or under S$4,500, so Part 4 applies. He has 2 days carried from 2025 and 5 of his 14 days for 2026 unused. On our reading of MOM's 2022 to 2023 example, the 2 older days can be forfeited if unused by 31 December; the 5 must be allowed into 2027. Mrs Tan tells him now, while December rosters are open.
• Aisyah, part-time cashier, 20 hours a week, first year. If she works 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, and a similar full-timer works MOM's 44-hour week, MOM's own figures give her 25.5 hours for the year, and each 4-hour shift taken as leave uses 4 of them.

If Hafiz resigned and left with those 5 days unused, on a gross rate of S$2,950 (S$2,800 basic plus a S$150 fixed shift allowance in his contract; his S$100 travel allowance is excluded) and a 5.5-day week, the daily rate is 12 × 2,950 ÷ (52 × 5.5) = about S$123.78, so about S$618.88 for 5 days (5 × 35,400 ÷ 286; S$618.90 if you multiply the rounded daily rate; our arithmetic).

A year-end annual leave checklist

1. Sort staff into Part 4 and non-Part 4 by basic salary and whether the work is mainly manual.
2. Count each balance with MOM's completed-month formula, excluding unpaid leave.
3. Flag carried-forward leave that can be forfeited after 31 December, and consider telling those employees in writing before December rosters are set.
4. Read each contract for non-Part 4 staff and for days above the minimum.
5. Check your records. MOM's employment records page requires dates of leave taken and public holidays for each employee covered by the Act, kept for the latest two years; our records retention guide covers the rest.
6. Plan leavers' final pay at the daily gross rate.
7. Look ahead with our public holidays 2027 guide and set new hires' leave terms with the first employee checklist; more in the Operations hub.

Common questions