By Désirée Attard, published on December 30, 2022

Workers in Malta are protected by means of several laws and regulations, which include the organisation of working hours, as well as the right to rest. This is where vacation leave comes into play.

Employees working a 40-hour week are entitled to 192 vacation days, that is, four weeks and 32 hours off from work, over and above other forms of leave, such as sick leave, quarantine leave, or bereavement leave, to name a few. This entitlement is also extended where public holidays fall on any day of the week where the worker is not scheduled to work, such as during the weekend for office employees.

While workers are encouraged to fully use their time off during the calendar year, life happens, and sometimes, December comes around with unutilised leave still pending.

The Organisation of Working Time Regulations cater for this scenario by providing that up to 50% of a worker’s annual vacation leave may be carried over to the next year, as long as both employee and employer agree to such arrangement. This leave may only be carried forward once; so, for instance, any leave carried over from 2022 to 2023 cannot then be carried over again into 2024.

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