SRL annual leave in 2026: 20 working days, leave pay and the November holidays

On Monday 2 November 2026, an SRL that has signed an employment contract still has to schedule days, not only to write them into a clause. The employment-contract guide says the length of annual leave, at least 20 working days, must sit in the contract, next to probation, part-time work and the fitness file. It does not say how the 10 uninterrupted days are scheduled, how pay is averaged over the last 3 months, or why an agreement to «just pay the days» is void while the contract continues. The Form 112 guide covers REGES, the 25% pension contribution, the 10% health contribution, 10% income tax and the 2.25% labour-insurance contribution. Leave pay goes through those rates. That guide is not the leave calendar.

The five searches on this URL: (1) annual leave in 2026, a minimum of 20 working days, (2) scheduling, with at least 10 uninterrupted working days when you split it, (3) leave pay, the average of the last 3 months, paid at least 5 working days ahead, (4) unused leave, which is paid in cash only when the contract ends, (5) the public holidays left in November and December 2026, which are not deducted from the 20. The family is payroll. This is not a return calendar with a due date on the 25th, and it is not a guide to the deductibility of expenses.

The figures below were checked on 2 November 2026 against the consolidated Labour Code (Law no. 53/2003) dated 13 July 2026. Art. 145 is unchanged since 22 October 2022 (Law no. 283/2022). Art. 146, in the form given by Law no. 12/2015, leaves cash compensation to the end of the contract. Art. 148, 150 and 151 are in the form from the 2011 republication. GEO no. 32/2026 (Official Gazette no. 335 of 27 April 2026) touched art. 260, by adding letter e^6), not art. 139–151. High Court decision no. 40/2026, the panel for preliminary rulings, published in Official Gazette no. 665 of 11 August 2026, fixes the limitation period and the 18-month carry-over. Up to this date I have not found an act that rewrites annual leave after 11 August 2026.

The right to paid annual leave is guaranteed to every employee, and the right cannot be assigned, waived or limited (art. 144). The minimum length is 20 working days (art. 145 (1)). The effective length is written in the individual employment contract, in line with the law and the applicable collective agreements (paragraph (2)). Public holidays on which no work is done, and paid days off from the applicable collective agreement, are not part of the 20 (paragraph (3)). A clause of 15 working days on an ordinary post is below the minimum. The clause belongs in the contract before the first day of work: the list of elements, including this length, is in the employment-contract guide, not here.

Three extra working days, at least, are not a seniority bonus. Art. 147 (1) gives them to employees in difficult, dangerous or harmful conditions, to blind persons, to other persons with disabilities and to young people under 18. The number is set by the applicable collective agreement and is at least 3 working days (paragraph (2)). An office post, for a 30-year-old without those conditions, stays at the 20 days in the contract. The Code, in the text read on 2 November 2026, no longer prints steps such as «another 3 days after 5 years of service». If an applicable collective agreement provides them, they are added. If there is no such agreement, do not invent them from the memory of an older code.

Art. 145 (4), in the form in force from 22 October 2022, counts as time worked: temporary incapacity, maternity leave, paternal leave, maternity-risk leave, leave to care for a sick child, carer's leave and the absence under art. 152^2. If one of these starts during annual leave, annual leave is interrupted, and the rest is taken afterwards, or rescheduled when a return is not possible (paragraph (5)). Even a full calendar year of temporary incapacity still leaves the right to annual leave, which the employer grants within 18 months starting with the following year (paragraph (6)). This article does not calculate sick-pay. Art. 145 (1) does not cut the 20 days in half for part-time work: the working day is the day in that contract's schedule, and the pay follows the rights in the contract. The director's mandate does not include this leave. The comparison is in the remuneration guide.

Leave is taken on a collective or individual schedule set by the employer. For a collective schedule the trade union is consulted or, where applicable, the employees' representatives. For an individual schedule the employee is consulted. The schedule is made by the end of the calendar year for the following year (art. 148 (1)). A collective schedule may set leave periods of at least 3 months by category of staff or workplace (paragraph (2)). An individual schedule may set the start date, or a period in which the employee is entitled to go, and that period cannot exceed 3 months (paragraph (3)). Inside the window, the employee may ask to take the leave at least 60 days ahead (paragraph (4)). When the schedule is split, the employer sets it so that each employee takes, in a calendar year, at least 10 uninterrupted working days of leave (paragraph (5)).

Example on 2 November 2026. A contract that takes effect on Monday 2 November 2026 could not have been on the schedule made by 31 December 2025: the person was not an employee. The individual schedule is made now, after consulting them. The 60 days in paragraph (4) are the right to request leave inside a window that already exists. They are not a waiting period that forbids any departure sooner than 60 days after hiring. For a departure on Wednesday 2 December 2026, the 60th calendar day before is Saturday 3 October 2026, before the contract. Paragraph (4) does not say a later request is void. It says that, inside the scheduled window, the employee may ask to leave with this notice. A block of 10 working days, from Monday 7 December through Friday 18 December 2026, covers 7–11 and 14–18 December. Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 are the weekly rest, not leave days. The text says «uninterrupted» and does not add a sentence that the weekend restarts the count.

The employee must take the leave in kind in the scheduled period, except in cases the law provides or when objective reasons prevent it (art. 149). The employee may interrupt it, at their request, for objective reasons (art. 151 (1)). The employer may recall them only for force majeure or for urgent interests that require their presence at work. The employer then bears all the costs of the employee and of their family for the return to the workplace, and any loss caused by the interruption (paragraph (2)). The remaining days continue as leave. They do not turn into cash while the contract continues. Leave days are not hours worked: the daily record of hours, with the start time and the end time, remains the duty in art. 119, and the fine of RON 1,500–3,000 for a missing record is explained in the employment-contract guide.

For the leave period, the employee receives pay that cannot be lower than the base salary, the indemnities and the permanent bonuses due for that period, as written in the contract (art. 150 (1)). The pay is the daily average of these rights from the last 3 months before the month in which the leave is taken, multiplied by the number of leave days (paragraph (2)). It is paid at least 5 working days before departure (paragraph (3)). An occasional bonus, which is not permanent and is not in the contract as a permanent right, does not enter paragraph (1). A meal voucher is not that bonus. This article does not calculate its tax treatment.

Example for a departure of 5 working days: Wednesday 2, Thursday 3, Friday 4, Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 December 2026. Monday 30 November and Tuesday 1 December are public holidays, not days among the 5. The count of the 5 working days before Wednesday 2 December skips the weekend of 28–29 November and the two holidays. The days are Friday 27, Thursday 26, Wednesday 25, Tuesday 24 and Monday 23 November 2026. The last day on which payment is still «at least 5 working days ahead» is Monday 23 November 2026. A payment on Tuesday 24 November is 4 working days ahead. If the only day requested is Friday 27 November 2026, as a bridge before 30 November, that is one day of leave, and the 5 working days before fall on Friday 20 November 2026.

Art. 150 does not print the divider of the daily average. For a fixed base salary of RON 4,325, with no permanent bonuses, September, October and November 2026 paid in full give a numerator of RON 12,975. The RON 200 facility for July–December 2026, described in the Form 112 guide, reduces the contribution base, not the gross that art. 150 names. With full attendance, scheduled working days, excluding Monday 30 November, are 22 in September, 22 in October and 20 in November, so 64. Days actually worked are the same 64, because the holiday is not a day worked. RON 12,975 / 64 = RON 202.734375, multiplied by 5 = RON 1,013.67. The floor in paragraph (1), read as the leave month's base divided by the working days of that month, is RON 4,325 / 22 × 5 = RON 982.95 in December 2026 (22 working days, after removing Friday 25 December). RON 1,013.67 sits above that floor. If the 3 months contain unpaid absence or a contract that started mid-month, days worked and scheduled days split, and the Code does not choose the divider. Leave pay is income of a salary nature: 25% pension, 10% health, 10% income tax and 2.25% labour insurance sit in the Form 112 guide. The transfer leaves the company's account. The 60 working days for opening the account are in the bank-account guide.

Annual leave is taken every year (art. 146 (1)). If, for justified reasons, the employee cannot take all or part of the leave for that calendar year, with their agreement, the employer must grant the unused leave within 18 months starting with the year after the year in which the right arose (paragraph (2)). For a right arising in 2026, the window read this way starts on 1 January 2027 and lasts 18 months, through 30 June 2028. The carry-over requires justified reasons and the person's agreement. It is not a unilateral postponement, decided in December, for the whole staff. Cash compensation of unused leave is allowed only when the individual employment contract ends (paragraph (3), Law no. 12/2015).

An agreement in December 2026, under which the firm pays the unused days and the contract continues in January, contradicts paragraph (3) and the ban on waiver in art. 144 (2). Art. 260 has no letter whose act is precisely «I did not grant annual leave». A clause contrary to the law is letter (d): a fine of RON 2,000 to RON 5,000. A delay in wages of more than one month is letter (s), RON 5,000–10,000 per person, and that is the rule on paying wages, not a special fine for the 5 working days in art. 150 (3). Missing those 5 working days remains a breach of art. 150. The employee's claim is the sum. I have not found in art. 260 a band written only for this delay.

High Court decision no. 40/2026, published on 11 August 2026, interprets art. 268 (1) (c) against art. 146 (2) and (3). The 3-year limitation period for money claims derived from days of leave not taken by the end of the relationship, arising from an actual right, starts when the employment relationship ends. For the interval that goes beyond the 18-month carry-over, the right to cash compensation still exists when the employer did not actually offer the chance to take the leave, and does not exist when the employee held back although the chance was offered. «The 18 months passed, the days vanished» is not what the High Court said if the schedule was never opened. A full-time contract remains a contract on leave days as well. The employee-or-mandate condition for the 1% micro-enterprise rate is in the micro guide. Leave does not end that condition and does not replace it.

Through 31 December 2026, four public holidays on which no work is done remain on the list in art. 139 (1): Monday 30 November, Saint Andrew; Tuesday 1 December; Friday 25 December, the first day of Christmas; Saturday 26 December, the second day of Christmas. The employer grants them (paragraph (2)). They are not deducted from the 20 working days of leave (art. 145 (3)). On a Monday–Friday schedule, Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November, plus Monday 30 November and Tuesday 1 December, are four consecutive days off without using leave. Work resumes on Wednesday 2 December 2026. Friday 27 November is a working day. If you cover it with annual leave, you use one day of the 20, and the pay for that day is due by Friday 20 November 2026 at the latest.

Saturday 26 December 2026 does not move by itself to Monday 28 December. Art. 139 has no sentence that transfers a holiday falling on the weekly rest. The same rule already operated in 2026: 24 January and 15 August fell on a Saturday, with no Monday in their place. Paragraph (4) allows the government to set, by 15 January, bridge days for staff in the budgetary system. The sentence does not bind a private SRL. On a Monday–Friday schedule, Friday 25 December is a holiday, Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 are the weekend rest, and Monday 28 December is a working day, unless you cover it with leave. In 2026, Orthodox Pentecost fell on Sunday 31 May, and the next day, Monday 1 June, is also the 1 June date in art. 139. The Code lists them separately and does not print a replacement day when they coincide.

Art. 139 does not apply in workplaces where the activity cannot be interrupted because of the production process or the specific nature of the activity (art. 141). For those workplaces and for the units in art. 140, compensation is the corresponding time off in the following 30 days (art. 142 (1)). If, for justified reasons, the time off is not granted, the bonus on the base salary cannot be lower than 100% of the base salary corresponding to the work done in the normal schedule (paragraph (2)). At the minimum of RON 25.949 per hour in Government Decision no. 146/2026, 8 hours means a base of RON 207.592. The 100% bonus is at least another RON 207.59, on top of the base for the hours, not instead of it. For work on Monday 30 November, the 30 days counted with Tuesday 1 December as day 1 end on Wednesday 30 December 2026. A breach of art. 139 and 142 is art. 260 (1) (g): a fine of RON 5,000 to RON 10,000. Letter (g) is not in the 48 hours of paragraph (1^1), which stops at letters (e)–(e^3). For the rest, paragraph (3) points to the general regime. Half of the RON 5,000 minimum is RON 2,500, within at most 15 calendar days of handing over the report, not half of the fine chosen inside the band. A report handed over on Monday 2 November 2026 has day 15 on Tuesday 17 November 2026.

Walk through the steps before the Saint Andrew break. The weekdays below were checked on 2 November 2026: 30 November is a Monday, 1 December is a Tuesday, 25 December is a Friday, 26 December is a Saturday.

Tavoris prepares the Trade Register incorporation dossier from the identity document and the contract for the registered office. It does not draft the individual employment contract, set the leave schedule, calculate the RON 1,013.67 in the example, or file Form 112. After the certificate, the days, the hours record and the transfer are yours and your accountant's.

The steps after the certificate — the private virtual space, the account, the tax vector — are in the after-incorporation checklist. Opening that space does not schedule leave and does not move Monday 23 November 2026. The clauses that must exist before the first hour of work, including the length of leave written in the contract, are in the employment-contract guide.

Informational guide as of 2 November 2026. Law no. 53/2003, Law no. 12/2015, Law no. 283/2022, GEO no. 32/2026, Government Decision no. 146/2026, Government Ordinance no. 2/2001 and High Court decision no. 40/2026 may be updated. The divider of the daily average is not written in art. 150: the example with 64 days is a reading at full attendance, not a figure printed by the Code. Check legislatie.just.ro, inspectiamuncii.ro and anaf.ro for the rates on the payroll. This is not employment-law, tax or human-resources advice.