How to plan paid summer vacation for employees?

As the summer season approaches, you have likely started planning for your employees’ summer vacation departures. This is a fantastic opportunity to refresh your knowledge of the applicable rules in this area.

Important: In many companies, employees must have taken all their vacation days accumulated from June 1, 2023 to May 31, 2024 by May 31, 2025. If this applies to your company, it is essential to review whether any employees have outstanding paid leave. If so, you must ensure that these employees take the accumulated vacation days.

The Order of departures for summer vacation

If the order of departures for summer vacation is not set by a company-level agreement or, failing that, by a collective agreement, it is up to you, after consulting your social and economic committee if necessary, to establish the vacation schedule for your employees according to their family situation, seniority in the company as well as any commitments they may have with other employers.

Each employee must be informed, by any means (poster, memo, etc.), of the order of vacation departures at least one month in advance. Without the agreement of your employees or in exceptional circumstances (replacement of a deceased employee, for example), you will not be able to change the established schedule less than one month before your employees’ vacation departure (a different notice period may be set by a company-level agreement or by your collective agreement).

Calculating summer vacation duration

When an employee’s paid leave is calculated in working days, it is counted from the first day the employee was scheduled to work until the day before his/her return to work. Working days include all the days of the week, except the weekly day of rest (usually Sunday) and public holidays, which are generally non-working days in your company.

Example: If August 15 is a public holiday, i.e., a non-working day in the company, an employee on leave from July 30 to August 20, 2025, inclusive, will have 18 working days of paid leave calculated as follows: from July 30 to August 2 (4 days), from August 4 to August 9 (6 days), from 11 August to August 16 (5 days) and from August 18 to August 20 (3 days).