How to check holiday pay

When a review is useful

Check your holiday pay if you re­cent­ly changed em­ploy­ers, worked re­mote­ly for part of the year, re­ceived ir­reg­u­lar bonuses, or were given an amount without a clear break­down. Com­par­ing it with your salary or last year’s payment will not answer the ques­tion: each period of leave has its own cal­cu­la­tion period and cal­en­dar.

In the Lviv labor market, people often change jobs after re­lo­cat­ing, move between local and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, or combine office and remote work. Pro­ce­dure No. 100 applies na­tion­wide, but records may be stored in dif­fer­ent HR systems. First iden­ti­fy your current em­ploy­er and collect data for that em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship.

Do not confuse pay for annual leave with com­pen­sa­tion for unused days on ter­mi­na­tion. Com­pen­sa­tion has a sep­a­rate prac­ti­cal guide and a cal­cu­la­tor for two pos­si­ble bases. This pro­ce­dure applies when an em­ploy­ee ac­tu­al­ly takes annual leave.

Applicable period and rules

The general rule under Pro­ce­dure No. 100 is the 12 cal­en­dar months before the month leave begins. If leave starts on 15 October 2026, the usual period ends on 30 Sep­tem­ber. For an em­ploy­ee hired in the current year, however, the period may cover only the full cal­en­dar months ac­tu­al­ly worked. Check the hiring date and first full month against the order; do not carry over pay from a pre­vi­ous em­ploy­er.

The nu­mer­a­tor is then formed from the pay­ments that count toward the cal­cu­la­tion. Most un­no­ticed errors arise here. A payslip may include salary, in­dex­a­tion, a bonus, sick pay, pre­vi­ous average pay, com­pen­sa­tion, and other entries. Apply Pro­ce­dure No. 100 to each type. Pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to quar­ter­ly and annual bonuses: they do not always belong en­tire­ly to the month in which they were paid.

The de­nom­i­na­tor starts with the cal­en­dar days in the defined period. Sub­tract only days with a proper legal ground and sup­port­ing doc­u­ments. A fa­mil­iar pre-war table in which ac­count­ing au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ex­clud­ed hol­i­days under Article 73 of the Labour Code may be wrong in 2026: that article does not apply during martial law. A day may still be ex­clud­ed for another reason, so the ground matters more than the day’s label.

Average pay equals el­i­gi­ble pay­ments divided by the cal­cu­la­tion period’s cal­en­dar days. Holiday pay is the precise average mul­ti­plied by the leave days. Do not round the average to cents before mul­ti­ply­ing; that can create a small but sys­tem­at­ic dif­fer­ence. The holiday-pay cal­cu­la­tor keeps pre­ci­sion until the final result and shows the nu­mer­a­tor and de­nom­i­na­tor sep­a­rate­ly.

As a general rule, payment must be made before leave begins. A law, em­ploy­ment agree­ment, or col­lec­tive agree­ment may set another dead­line. Do not copy an old demand tem­plate re­quir­ing payment “three days before leave” without check­ing the current law and agree­ments.

If the monthly state­ment con­tains dis­put­ed sick pay or busi­ness-trip pay, check those entries using the sick-pay guide or the guide to check­ing busi­ness-trip pay. How each payment is cal­cu­lat­ed and whether it counts toward holiday pay are sep­a­rate ques­tions; do not copy the amount without check­ing its basis.

Steps to take

1. Confirm the type and du­ra­tion of leave. The request and order must concern annual leave. Check the cal­en­dar dates, whether the leave is split into parts, and how many days are being paid now.
2. Set the cal­cu­la­tion months. Record the month leave begins, then iden­ti­fy the 12 pre­vi­ous cal­en­dar months. If em­ploy­ment began later, apply the shorter-period rule and record why the first month was or was not in­clud­ed.
3. Collect monthly gross amounts. Request elec­tron­ic or paper payslips. A bank state­ment shows only the net payment and cannot re­con­struct the com­po­nents of gross pay. If the HR system has changed, send the em­ploy­er a written request for archived payslips.
4. Break down complex pay­ments. Create a sep­a­rate table for bonuses and awards: name, period, accrual month, and al­lo­ca­tion method. If ac­count­ing cannot show the monthly al­lo­ca­tion, do not assume the entire bonus belongs in one month.
5. Check the cal­en­dar. Count all cal­en­dar days in the period. For each ex­clu­sion, record the dates, doc­u­ment, and legal ground. Sep­a­rate­ly check that a public holiday was not de­duct­ed merely because of an old system setting.
6. Check the precise formula. Add the ver­i­fied monthly amounts, divide by cal­en­dar days after ex­clu­sions, and mul­ti­ply by leave days. Compare the final gross amount with the em­ploy­er’s gross payroll amount to the cent.
7. Request an ex­pla­na­tion or cor­rec­tion. Show a table in your request rather than an emo­tion­al as­sess­ment: your period, amounts, ex­clud­ed days, formula, the em­ploy­er’s result, and the spe­cif­ic dif­fer­ence. If an error is con­firmed, request a cor­rect­ed payslip and the date of the ad­di­tion­al payment.

Before submitting a request

First check that you are not com­par­ing gross and net amounts. The cal­cu­la­tor and ac­count­ing accrual show the amount before tax; a bank trans­fer already re­flects de­duc­tions and may combine salary, an advance, and holiday pay. Compare each layer sep­a­rate­ly.

If you worked for two com­pa­nies during the year, doc­u­ments from the former company are not added to the new em­ploy­er’s cal­cu­la­tion just because they fall within the same 12 cal­en­dar months. Analyze the spe­cif­ic em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship. For a trans­fer between legal en­ti­ties or a re­or­ga­ni­za­tion, ask the em­ploy­er in writing to explain the basis for keeping or chang­ing the cal­cu­la­tion period.

If there were no actual earn­ings, Pro­ce­dure No. 100 may require the cal­cu­la­tion to use a tariff rate or of­fi­cial salary. This is not a case for filling monthly fields with zeros. Do not invent missing amounts if part of the archive was lost either: special rules apply to certain martial-law cir­cum­stances and must be applied using the doc­u­ments.

Check the payment dead­line in the em­ploy­ment and col­lec­tive agree­ments. If leave has started and no payment has arrived, sep­a­rate­ly record the start date, your request to the em­ploy­er, and the bank state­ment. If an actual debt has arisen, use the guide to unpaid wages and do not miss the dead­line for going to court.

When to consult a lawyer

A legal review is useful when the em­ploy­er refuses to explain its method, HR and ac­count­ing have dif­fer­ent tables, the em­ploy­er cannot justify ex­clud­ed days, or it al­lo­cates a sig­nif­i­cant bonus en­tire­ly to one month. The lawyer’s task is not to guess a “fair amount,” but to link each part of the formula to a doc­u­ment and the current rule.

Do not rely on an au­to­mat­ic result when there were no earn­ings, primary records are in­com­plete, there are no full cal­en­dar months, or annual leave over­laps with other types of leave. In these sit­u­a­tions, the cal­cu­la­tor cor­rect­ly stops because a special rule takes prece­dence over simple arith­metic.

For an em­ploy­ee in Lviv or a com­mu­ni­ty in the oblast, a useful con­sul­ta­tion should produce a re­con­struct­ed monthly table, a checked cal­en­dar, a tar­get­ed request to the spe­cif­ic em­ploy­er, and an as­sess­ment of next steps. If records re­mained in the system after re­lo­ca­tion or an office move, a lawyer can help phrase the request to obtain the missing break­down rather than a generic re­sponse.