Question 1

What is this topic?

Accepted Answer

Taiwan's Labor Standards Act Article 38 tiers annual leave into six bands: 3 days at six months, 7 at one year, 10 at two years, 14 a year from three to five years, 15 a year from five to ten years, and one extra day per year after ten, capped at 30 — and unused days aren't lost, since Article 38(4) requires the employer to pay wages for them. Japan's Article 39 starts at 10 days after six months and rises to a 20-day cap at 6.5 years; since 2019 employers must ensure workers with enough entitlement actually take at least 5 days, but under Article 115 anything left unused after two years simply expires — no payout. Mainland China's Regulation on Paid Annual Leave requires 12 months of continuous service to qualify, then grants 5, 10, or 15 days by cumulative tenure, with 300% of the daily wage owed for any day the employer fails to schedule (Art. 5). US federal law has no statutory annual leave at all — the Fair Labor Standards Act simply doesn't regulate vacation, leaving whether and how much to employers or states. India's leave protection long lived only in Factories Act Section 79, covering factory workers who hit 240 days a year at one day per 20 worked; shops and services were always governed by separate, inconsistent state laws, and a national labour code only lowered the threshold to 180 days in November 2025. Indonesia's Manpower Law Article 79 grants 12 days after 12 months; the old mandatory two-month long-leave benefit after six years' service is now merely optional under the amended law. Brazil's CLT Article 130 grants 30 days, but unjustified absences during the year shrink it, and a worker may cash out up to a third of it (Art. 143). Overtime pay diverges even more: Taiwan pays a one-third premium for the first two extra hours and two-thirds beyond that; Japan adds a 50% premium past 60 hours a month; China runs three tiers — 150% on weekdays, 200% on rest days, 300% cash-only on statutory holidays; the US only counts 1.5x for hours past 40 in a week, with no daily rule and no hour cap; India pays a flat double time beyond statutory hours; Indonesia pays 1.5x the first hour and 2x after, capped at 4 hours a day; Brazil requires at least a 50% premium but caps overtime at 2 hours a day.

Question 2

When is it?

Accepted Answer

There is no single verified fixed date here; timing varies by place, household, or personal choice.

Question 3

How do places mark it?

Accepted Answer

United States; Brazil; China; Indonesia; India; Japan; Taiwan

Question 4

What differs by place?

Accepted Answer

Brazil: Brazil's consolidated labor code, the CLT, grants 30 days of annual leave under Article 130, contingent on completing a 12-month "acquisitive period" — but unjustified absences during that year cut the total down: 24 days if there were 6 to 14 absences, 18 days for 15 to 23, and just 12 days for 24 to 32 — the more absences, the less leave, a design unique to Brazil that ties vacation length directly to attendance. Leave must be scheduled within 12 months of becoming eligible (the "concessive period"), and if the employer misses that deadline, the law requires paying for that leave in double (Arts. 134 and 137). Workers can also convert up to a third of their leave into cash, but must request it at least 15 days before the acquisitive period ends (Art. 143). On overtime, the minimum premium is written directly into the Constitution — Article 7(XVI) sets it at least 50% above the normal wage — and CLT Article 59 adds a hard ceiling of 2 extra hours a day: however much you want the overtime pay, the day itself caps out at two hours of it. China: Mainland China's paid annual leave requires 12 months of continuous employment to qualify, and the number of days then depends on cumulative years worked, in three tiers: 5 days under 10 years, 10 days from 10 to under 20 years, and 15 days from 20 years on (Regulation on Paid Annual Leave for Employees, Arts. 2–3). The easy thing to miss is that "cumulative" doesn't mean "with the same employer" — years add up across jobs, so switching employers doesn't reset the count. If the employer fails to schedule the leave it's owed, it doesn't just disappear: the employer must pay 300% of the daily wage for each unused day, unless the worker waives it in writing (Art. 5). The standard workweek is 8 hours a day, averaging 44 hours a week — not the 40 hours often assumed (Labor Law Art. 36). Overtime is normally capped at 1 hour a day, extendable to 3 hours under special circumstances, but never more than 36 hours a month regardless (Art. 41). Overtime pay has three tiers: at least 150% on a normal workday, at least 200% for work on a rest day if no compensatory time off is arranged instead (comp time can substitute for the cash), and a flat 300% cash-only — no comp time allowed — for work on a statutory holiday (Art. 44). Indonesia: Indonesia's Manpower Law, Article 79, entitles a worker to 12 working days of annual leave after 12 months of continuous employment with the same employer, with the details of how it's scheduled left to the employment agreement, company regulations, or a collective agreement (Art. 79(3)-(4)). What's really worth comparing is what got taken away: the old law used to mandate a full two-month "long leave" in years seven and eight for anyone with six years of continuous service — a hard requirement. After the 2023 omnibus Job Creation Law amendment, the text now says "certain companies may provide long leave" — shifting from a mandate to something that only exists if a company or collective agreement chooses to grant it. Overtime rules were also rewritten in Government Regulation No. 35 of 2021: a cap of 4 hours a day and 18 hours a week (Art. 26), with pay at 1.5 times the hourly wage for the first hour and 2 times for every hour after that (Art. 31) — a generous first-hour rate, but the 4-hour daily ceiling is a hard limit, unlike Taiwan or Japan where negotiation can push it higher. India: For decades, India's annual leave rule lived only in Section 79 of the Factories Act, 1948, and it covered only factory workers: anyone who worked at least 240 days in a calendar year earned one day of leave for every 20 days worked (adults) or every 15 days (child workers), with carryover capped at 30 days for adults and 40 for children. What matters more is what it never covered — shops, restaurants, offices, and other commercial establishments, which fell instead under separate state-level Shops and Establishments Acts, each state writing its own rules. India has, in effect, never had one uniform national annual-leave standard. That changed on 21 November 2025, when four new labour codes came into force nationwide; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code folded thirteen laws — including the Factories Act — into one, and lowered the qualifying threshold from 240 days to 180 days, while keeping the same one-day-per-20-days conversion. Overtime pay is comparatively blunt: under the old rule, working beyond 9 hours a day or 48 hours a week triggered double wages; the new code changed the daily trigger to 8 hours (weekly stays at 48), but the multiplier is unchanged — still double. Japan: Japan's Labor Standards Act Article 39 grants 10 days of paid leave after six months of continuous service with 80% or higher attendance, then adds more with tenure — 11 days at 1.5 years, 12 at 2.5, 14 at 3.5, 16 at 4.5, 18 at 5.5, capping at 20 days from 6.5 years onward. Since 2019 there's a harder rule: once a worker's annual entitlement reaches 10 days, the employer is legally required to designate dates so the worker actually takes at least 5 of them — it's not simply "the employer's problem ends if the worker doesn't ask" (Art. 39(7)). Leave expires after 2 years unused, extinguished under Article 115 — the opposite of Taiwan's "pay out what's unused" rule; in Japan it's use-it-or-lose-it with no buyout. Overtime is governed by the "Article 36 agreement": the default cap is 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year, and even a special clause negotiated with the union can't remove the ceiling entirely — annual overtime tops out at 720 hours, no single month combining overtime and holiday work may exceed 100 hours, and no rolling 2-to-6-month average may exceed 80 hours. The overtime premium is at least 25%, rising to at least 50% on the portion beyond 60 hours in a month (Art. 37). Taiwan: Taiwan's annual paid leave is tiered by tenure with the same employer: 3 days at six months, 7 days at one year, 10 days at two years, 14 days a year from three to five years, 15 days a year from five to ten years, and one extra day per additional year after ten years, capped at 30 (Labor Standards Act Art. 38(1)). The point most people get wrong is whether unused days are simply lost — they are not: the employer must pay wages for whatever the worker didn't take, log it in the worker roster, and notify the worker in writing; "it just expires" is not a legal answer (Art. 38(4)). Overtime pay is banded too: the first two hours of extended work on a normal day earn a one-third premium, and anything beyond that earns two-thirds; the first two hours on a rest day pay 1⅓ times, and anything beyond pays 1⅔ times (Art. 24). Monthly overtime is normally capped at 46 hours, extendable to 54 hours with union or labor-management consent — but never more than 138 hours across any three months, a rule built specifically to stop employers from front-loading one month and calling it even the next (Art. 32). United States: US federal law imposes no requirement at all that employers provide paid vacation — and that absence is itself the sharpest outlier among the seven countries. The Department of Labor states it plainly: the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require payment for time not worked, whether vacation, sick leave, or federal holidays — those are matters left entirely to agreement between employer and employee (or a union), with no federal floor. The one carve-out is federal contractors covered by the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act or the Davis-Bacon Act, who may be required to provide vacation as a fringe benefit. Overtime, by contrast, is a clean single rule: non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular rate for any hours worked beyond 40 in a single workweek (29 U.S.C. § 207), with no federal daily-overtime trigger and no averaging hours across different weeks to cancel it out. Just as notable: federal law places no limit at all on how many hours a worker aged 16 or older can be required to work in a week — as long as the overtime premium gets paid, there is no statutory ceiling on the hours themselves.

Question 5

What does Brazil require?

Accepted Answer

Brazil's consolidated labor code, the CLT, grants 30 days of annual leave under Article 130, contingent on completing a 12-month "acquisitive period" — but unjustified absences during that year cut the total down: 24 days if there were 6 to 14 absences, 18 days for 15 to 23, and just 12 days for 24 to 32 — the more absences, the less leave, a design unique to Brazil that ties vacation length directly to attendance. Leave must be scheduled within 12 months of becoming eligible (the "concessive period"), and if the employer misses that deadline, the law requires paying for that leave in double (Arts. 134 and 137). Workers can also convert up to a third of their leave into cash, but must request it at least 15 days before the acquisitive period ends (Art. 143). On overtime, the minimum premium is written directly into the Constitution — Article 7(XVI) sets it at least 50% above the normal wage — and CLT Article 59 adds a hard ceiling of 2 extra hours a day: however much you want the overtime pay, the day itself caps out at two hours of it.

Question 6

What does China require?

Accepted Answer

Mainland China's paid annual leave requires 12 months of continuous employment to qualify, and the number of days then depends on cumulative years worked, in three tiers: 5 days under 10 years, 10 days from 10 to under 20 years, and 15 days from 20 years on (Regulation on Paid Annual Leave for Employees, Arts. 2–3). The easy thing to miss is that "cumulative" doesn't mean "with the same employer" — years add up across jobs, so switching employers doesn't reset the count. If the employer fails to schedule the leave it's owed, it doesn't just disappear: the employer must pay 300% of the daily wage for each unused day, unless the worker waives it in writing (Art. 5). The standard workweek is 8 hours a day, averaging 44 hours a week — not the 40 hours often assumed (Labor Law Art. 36). Overtime is normally capped at 1 hour a day, extendable to 3 hours under special circumstances, but never more than 36 hours a month regardless (Art. 41). Overtime pay has three tiers: at least 150% on a normal workday, at least 200% for work on a rest day if no compensatory time off is arranged instead (comp time can substitute for the cash), and a flat 300% cash-only — no comp time allowed — for work on a statutory holiday (Art. 44).

Question 7

What does Indonesia require?

Accepted Answer

Indonesia's Manpower Law, Article 79, entitles a worker to 12 working days of annual leave after 12 months of continuous employment with the same employer, with the details of how it's scheduled left to the employment agreement, company regulations, or a collective agreement (Art. 79(3)-(4)). What's really worth comparing is what got taken away: the old law used to mandate a full two-month "long leave" in years seven and eight for anyone with six years of continuous service — a hard requirement. After the 2023 omnibus Job Creation Law amendment, the text now says "certain companies may provide long leave" — shifting from a mandate to something that only exists if a company or collective agreement chooses to grant it. Overtime rules were also rewritten in Government Regulation No. 35 of 2021: a cap of 4 hours a day and 18 hours a week (Art. 26), with pay at 1.5 times the hourly wage for the first hour and 2 times for every hour after that (Art. 31) — a generous first-hour rate, but the 4-hour daily ceiling is a hard limit, unlike Taiwan or Japan where negotiation can push it higher.

Question 8

What does India require?

Accepted Answer

For decades, India's annual leave rule lived only in Section 79 of the Factories Act, 1948, and it covered only factory workers: anyone who worked at least 240 days in a calendar year earned one day of leave for every 20 days worked (adults) or every 15 days (child workers), with carryover capped at 30 days for adults and 40 for children. What matters more is what it never covered — shops, restaurants, offices, and other commercial establishments, which fell instead under separate state-level Shops and Establishments Acts, each state writing its own rules. India has, in effect, never had one uniform national annual-leave standard. That changed on 21 November 2025, when four new labour codes came into force nationwide; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code folded thirteen laws — including the Factories Act — into one, and lowered the qualifying threshold from 240 days to 180 days, while keeping the same one-day-per-20-days conversion. Overtime pay is comparatively blunt: under the old rule, working beyond 9 hours a day or 48 hours a week triggered double wages; the new code changed the daily trigger to 8 hours (weekly stays at 48), but the multiplier is unchanged — still double.

Question 9

What does Japan require?

Accepted Answer

Japan's Labor Standards Act Article 39 grants 10 days of paid leave after six months of continuous service with 80% or higher attendance, then adds more with tenure — 11 days at 1.5 years, 12 at 2.5, 14 at 3.5, 16 at 4.5, 18 at 5.5, capping at 20 days from 6.5 years onward. Since 2019 there's a harder rule: once a worker's annual entitlement reaches 10 days, the employer is legally required to designate dates so the worker actually takes at least 5 of them — it's not simply "the employer's problem ends if the worker doesn't ask" (Art. 39(7)). Leave expires after 2 years unused, extinguished under Article 115 — the opposite of Taiwan's "pay out what's unused" rule; in Japan it's use-it-or-lose-it with no buyout. Overtime is governed by the "Article 36 agreement": the default cap is 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year, and even a special clause negotiated with the union can't remove the ceiling entirely — annual overtime tops out at 720 hours, no single month combining overtime and holiday work may exceed 100 hours, and no rolling 2-to-6-month average may exceed 80 hours. The overtime premium is at least 25%, rising to at least 50% on the portion beyond 60 hours in a month (Art. 37).

Question 10

What does Taiwan require?

Accepted Answer

Taiwan's annual paid leave is tiered by tenure with the same employer: 3 days at six months, 7 days at one year, 10 days at two years, 14 days a year from three to five years, 15 days a year from five to ten years, and one extra day per additional year after ten years, capped at 30 (Labor Standards Act Art. 38(1)). The point most people get wrong is whether unused days are simply lost — they are not: the employer must pay wages for whatever the worker didn't take, log it in the worker roster, and notify the worker in writing; "it just expires" is not a legal answer (Art. 38(4)). Overtime pay is banded too: the first two hours of extended work on a normal day earn a one-third premium, and anything beyond that earns two-thirds; the first two hours on a rest day pay 1⅓ times, and anything beyond pays 1⅔ times (Art. 24). Monthly overtime is normally capped at 46 hours, extendable to 54 hours with union or labor-management consent — but never more than 138 hours across any three months, a rule built specifically to stop employers from front-loading one month and calling it even the next (Art. 32).

Question 11

What does United States require?

Accepted Answer

US federal law imposes no requirement at all that employers provide paid vacation — and that absence is itself the sharpest outlier among the seven countries. The Department of Labor states it plainly: the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require payment for time not worked, whether vacation, sick leave, or federal holidays — those are matters left entirely to agreement between employer and employee (or a union), with no federal floor. The one carve-out is federal contractors covered by the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act or the Davis-Bacon Act, who may be required to provide vacation as a fringe benefit. Overtime, by contrast, is a clean single rule: non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular rate for any hours worked beyond 40 in a single workweek (29 U.S.C. § 207), with no federal daily-overtime trigger and no averaging hours across different weeks to cancel it out. Just as notable: federal law places no limit at all on how many hours a worker aged 16 or older can be required to work in a week — as long as the overtime premium gets paid, there is no statutory ceiling on the hours themselves.

Place	When is it?	How the date is set
United States	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic
Brazil	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic
China	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic
Indonesia	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic
India	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic
Japan	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic
Taiwan	Date to be confirmed	Everyday topic

How many paid leave days, how overtime is paid — what differs across seven countries

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