The California Department of Industrial Relations explains on its official website what workers’ rights are when their jobs include vacation time.
“In California, employers are not legally required to provide employees with vacation time, paid or unpaid. However, if an employer offers paid vacation as part of its policies or through an agreement with employees, it must follow certain rules on how that benefit is provided,” the agency explains.
What California law says about vacation time expiring
Authorities specify that, if vacation time tied to a given year is not used during that period, it is illegal for the employer to tell the worker they have lost the right to it.
According to the explanation, earned vacation time in California is considered wages, so employers must account for it whether it is used or not.
However, what is allowed is for the employer to pay out unused vacation time from a given year. “Your employer has the right to manage vacation pay, and one way to do that is to pay you each year for vacation time you earned but did not take,” it says.
Vacation time does not expire, but employers can decide when and how much is taken
Although employers do not have the right, once it is granted, to say vacation time expires, they can decide when and how much an employee may take.
It also explains that policies setting caps on the amount of vacation an employee can accrue are allowed. Under these rules, there is a maximum amount of vacation time that can build up. If it is not taken, the employee is not allowed to add more days until the balance drops.
While this policy is legal, it will be considered unacceptable when it is used as a way to prevent employees from taking vacation. For example, if the cap is 200 hours and, once that limit is reached, the company systematically rejects the employee’s vacation requests so the balance cannot go down.
