When must annual leave be granted, and can it be split?

By when must leave be granted?

For each year of service, the employee takes the annual leave during the following year of service (Labour Law No. 4857, Article 54(4)). An employee who earns 14 days on 1 March 2026, for example, is expected to take that leave by 1 March 2027. The law puts this obligation on the employer: annual leave must be granted by the employer unbroken, as one continuous period (Article 56(2)).

This is not an expiry date. The right to annual paid leave cannot be waived (Article 53(2)); leave not taken in time is not cancelled but carries over and keeps accumulating while employment continues. A company rule or contract clause saying unused leave "lapses at year end" does not remove the employee's statutory right. The Court of Cassation accepts that, provided a claim is filed within five years of the end of the employment contract, leave pay can be claimed for the entire period of service (9th Civil Chamber, E.2019/1172, K.2019/4261). The Ministry of Labour and Social Security's question-and-answer booklet also states plainly that an employee's unused leave does not lapse when they leave. We cover payout rules in holiday pay and payout on termination.

The lawful way to reduce accumulated leave is to plan it and have it taken, not to erase it.

Who decides the dates?

Under the Annual Paid Leave Regulation, the employee notifies the employer in writing at least one month before the date on which they want to take leave (Article 7). The request states their name, their personnel number if any, the dates they want and whether they also want unpaid travel leave (Article 8).

The employer or the leave board is not bound by the dates the employee asks for (Article 8), and the Ministry also states that the employer has discretion in setting leave dates. Where requests for the same dates clash, priority goes to seniority at the workplace and to when each employee took their leave the previous year (Article 8).

The employer may decide that leave will be granted in a particular period or periods each year and must announce this at the workplace (Article 5). Workplaces with more than 100 employees set up a leave board of one employer representative and two employee representatives for this planning (Article 15); at smaller workplaces, the employer or a person it appoints carries out the board's duties together with a representative chosen by the employees (Article 18).

Can annual leave be split?

The rule is that leave is given unbroken: the employer may not split annual paid leave (Article 56(1)–(2)). By agreement of the parties, however, it can be taken in parts, provided one part is at least ten days (Article 56(3)). This wording has applied since 26 April 2016 under Law No. 6704; the old "at most three parts" limit was removed.

Example: splitting 20 days

An employee entitled to 20 days could agree with the employer to take the leave like this:

All 20 days are used, one part is 10 days and the split was agreed between the parties, so it complies with the rule.

Half days and parts shorter than 10 days

According to the established practice of the Court of Cassation's 9th Civil Chamber, annual leave is validly granted in parts shorter than 10 days when the employee asks for it (9th Civil Chamber, E.2026/1495, K.2026/3952, 28 April 2026). In that case, half-day parts were also treated as valid use of leave. What matters is that the short parts come from the employee's request: an employer that unilaterally breaks leave into short parts breaches Article 56(1) and risks an administrative fine. No settled court decision or Ministry opinion on hourly annual leave has been found.

Travel leave

An employee who will spend annual leave somewhere other than where the workplace is located must, on request and with supporting evidence, be given up to four days in total of unpaid leave to cover the journey there and back (Article 56(6)). Travel leave is not deducted from annual leave; it is a separate period added to it. An employee who comes back without using the travel leave need not be allowed back to work before that period ends (Regulation, Article 8).

Collective leave

Between the beginning of April and the end of October, the employer may apply collective leave to all or some of its employees (Regulation, Article 10). Collective leave may also cover employees who have not yet earned leave; for them it counts as an advance. A sufficient number of employees may be kept out of collective leave for essential work; they take their leave before or after it (Article 11).

Leave register and proof

The employer must keep a leave record showing the annual paid leave of its employees (Article 56(6); Regulation, Article 20). It may also be kept as a leave book or a card-index system. Each employee's entitlement date is recorded on it as well (Regulation, Article 4).

The burden of proving that leave was taken lies with the employer (Court of Cassation, Assembly of Civil Chambers, E.2016/1346, K.2019/1160). The Court expects the employer to prove this with a signed leave book or an equivalent document (9th Civil Chamber, E.2016/25817, K.2020/12037). A regular, dated record is the employer's main evidence both when someone leaves and in any dispute.

What happens if the rules are broken?

An employer that splits annual paid leave contrary to Article 56, or fails to grant leave or grants less than is due contrary to the Regulation, faces an administrative fine for each employee affected (Article 103). Under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security's 2026 table, the amount is TRY 4,815 per employee. Because the fine applies per employee, the total grows quickly in a large team whose leave goes unplanned.

A practical planning sequence

1. Track entitlement dates. Know each employee's next entitlement date and how many days it brings; this date also goes on the leave record (Regulation, Article 4).
2. Set and announce leave periods. If there are busy seasons or collective leave, announce them in advance (Regulation, Articles 5 and 10).
3. Collect requests early. Under the Regulation, employees give written notice of their leave at least one month ahead (Article 7).
4. Resolve clashes by the rules. Where requests fall on the same dates, look at seniority and at when each employee took leave the previous year (Article 8).
5. Record any split. If leave is split, record that it was at the employee's request or by agreement, and that one part is at least 10 days (Article 56(3)).

How İzin360 handles it

• Employees request leave as full days or half days (morning or afternoon); weekly rest days and public holidays are excluded automatically, and by default the request goes straight to their line manager for approval.
• When annual leave is being split, the system warns before submission if no unbroken 10-day block has been used yet in that leave year, or if the request would make one impossible. HR can make this rule mandatory in a leave policy.
• The team calendar shows who is off and when; if more of a team than the threshold share would be off on the same days, a warning appears while the request is being made (you can set the threshold in a leave policy).
• Travel leave comes as a built-in unpaid leave type; it is requested for up to 4 days with a supporting document.
• HR can enter full-day bulk leave for a department or the whole company on the same dates. If bulk annual leave falls outside 1 April–31 October, a warning reminds you of Regulation Article 10.
• Unused annual leave carries over with no expiry. The "Leave to be scheduled" list in the plan-dependent advanced reports shows employees whose balance exceeds a threshold you set.
• Every request, approval and balance movement is recorded with its date. See leave requests and approvals for details.