Annual leave in Singapore: a practical guide for SMEs

If you run HR at a small company in Singapore, annual leave questions come in all year. A new hire asks when they can take their first day off. A manager asks how much leave someone who is leaving has earned. Someone asks whether last year's unused days are gone for good.

The rules are short, but the details matter. This guide goes through them in plain language, with a link to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) page for every rule, so you can check the source yourself.

Who qualifies for annual leave

An employee is entitled to paid annual leave once they have worked for you for at least 3 months. They can only apply for annual leave after those 3 months. (MOM: eligibility and entitlement)

Probation doesn't change this. MOM says pro-rated leave for someone who has worked 3 to 12 months applies "even if you're still on probation".

How many days, by years of service

The entitlement starts at 7 days and goes up by one day for each year of service, up to 14 days from the 8th year. The year of service starts on the day the employee starts work with you, not on 1 January. (MOM: eligibility and entitlement)

Minimum annual leave under the Employment Act

Show the data

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

Here's MOM's own example. Someone who starts on 14 March gets 7 days for their first year (14 March to 13 March the next year), 8 days for their second year, and 9 for their third.

How to pro-rate leave

Leave is pro-rated when an employee hasn't completed a full year: in their first year (between 3 and 12 months), or in a year when they leave. In later years it's based on the completed months in the current year. (MOM: pro-rated leave)

The formula is:

(completed months of service ÷ 12) × annual leave entitlement

Then round: if the leftover fraction is less than half a day, round down. If it's half or more, round up to a full day.

Only completed months count. MOM's example: an employee starts on 14 March and leaves on 31 July. That's 4 completed months (14 March to 13 July). The days from 14 to 31 July don't count because they aren't a full month. With a 10-day entitlement, that's 4 ÷ 12 × 10 = 3.33 days, which rounds down to 3 days.

Pro-rated leave by completed months

entitled 7 daysentitled 10 daysentitled 14 days

Show the data

completed months	entitled 7 days	entitled 10 days	entitled 14 days
3	2	3	4
4	2	3	5
5	3	4	6
6	4	5	7
7	4	6	8
8	5	7	9
9	5	8	11
10	6	8	12
11	6	9	13
12	7	10	14

Two situations catch people out:

• Unpaid leave. You leave out periods of approved unpaid leave when you count completed months, so an employer can pro-rate the entitlement for them.
• Notice period. If someone resigns, their notice period counts towards their pro-rated leave.

MOM has a pro-rated annual leave calculator on the same page if you'd like to check your sums.

Unused leave: carry forward, encash or forfeit

This is where coverage under Part 4 of the Employment Act matters. MOM describes Part 4 as covering a workman earning a monthly basic salary of $4,500 or less, or a non-workman earning $2,600 or less. (MOM: annual leave in special situations)

• Covered by Part 4: you must let the employee carry forward unused annual leave to the next 12 months. If they don't use it by the end of those 12 months, it can be forfeited. MOM's example: unused leave from January to December 2022 carries to 2023, and can be forfeited if it isn't used by 31 December 2023.
• Not covered by Part 4: the employment contract decides whether unused leave is encashed, carried forward or forfeited.
• Leave above the legal minimum: for any days beyond the statutory entitlement, the contract decides, whatever the employee's salary.

A few more rules from the same MOM page are worth knowing:

• Leave taken on a half working day counts as a full day, unless your company chooses to treat it as a half day.
• If someone takes more paid leave than they're entitled to, the extra is treated as unpaid leave, so keep a record of every leave application.
• For shifts longer than 8 hours, one day of leave equals the actual working day. For a 12-hour shift, that's 12 hours.
• There's no statutory marriage or compassionate leave. That depends on the contract or on agreement.

For part-time employees, annual leave can be encashed into the hourly rate if both sides agree and it's written in the contract, with some exceptions. MOM has a separate page on leave for part-time employees.

Public holidays

Public holidays sit alongside annual leave and don't come out of it. Employees covered by the Employment Act get 11 paid public holidays a year: New Year's Day, the first and second days of Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Haji, Good Friday, Labour Day, Vesak Day, National Day, Deepavali and Christmas Day. (MOM: public holidays entitlement and pay)

What happens when a holiday lands on a day off depends on which day it is:

• Rest day (Sunday on a 5-day week): the next working day becomes a paid public holiday.
• Non-working day (Saturday on a 5-day week): the employee gets another day off, or an extra day's salary at the gross rate.

If you need someone to work on a public holiday, the default is an extra day's pay at the basic rate. By agreement, you can substitute another day as the holiday instead. Employees not covered by Part 4 can also get time off in lieu.

An employee on approved annual leave just before or after a holiday still gets holiday pay. An employee whose unpaid leave covers the holiday itself doesn't.

Keeping it simple in practice

Most leave mistakes at small companies come from counting, not from misreading the law. Typical ones are counting from 1 January instead of the start date, counting part months, or forgetting that someone is under Part 4. Write your leave policy down, record each employee's start date and Part 4 status, and work from completed months.

If you use Cova, new company accounts come with Singapore leave types (Annual, Medical, Hospitalisation, Compassionate and Unpaid) and the 2026 and 2027 MOM public holiday calendar already loaded, so you start from a Singapore setup instead of an empty list. Leave day counts skip weekends. Want public holidays skipped automatically too? We build and set that up for your team; in the meantime, leave a holiday out of a request's dates. Check each leave type's days against your own policy and each employee's years of service.

Cova: HR for Singapore SMEsSee how Cova helps small teams run HR in one place.cova.sg

Frequently asked questions

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Rules were checked against MOM's website on 13 October 2026. Always check the linked MOM pages for the latest position.