Annual leave entitlement by year of service
An employee covered by the Employment Act is entitled to paid annual leave after working for the employer for at least 3 months. The minimum rises by one day for each year of service.
| Year of service | Days of annual leave |
|---|---|
| 1st | 7 |
| 2nd | 8 |
| 3rd | 9 |
| 4th | 10 |
| 5th | 11 |
| 6th | 12 |
| 7th | 13 |
| 8th and after | 14 |
How to pro-rate annual leave
For an incomplete year of service, annual leave is pro-rated by completed months:
(Number of completed months of service ÷ 12) × number of days of annual leave entitlement.
A fraction of less than half a day is rounded down. Half a day or more is rounded up to one day. Periods of approved unpaid leave do not count as completed months.
Example: an employee in the first year of service, entitled to 7 days, who has completed 8 months has earned 8 ÷ 12 × 7 = 4.67 days, which rounds to 5 days.
Paid sick leave and hospitalisation leave
Paid sick leave also starts after 3 months of service and builds up to the full entitlement at 6 months.
| Months of service | Outpatient sick leave | Hospitalisation leave |
|---|---|---|
| 3 months | 5 days | 15 days |
| 4 months | 8 days | 30 days |
| 5 months | 11 days | 45 days |
| 6 months and after | 14 days | 60 days |
To qualify, the employee must be certified unfit for work by a medical practitioner, and must inform or try to inform the employer within 48 hours of the absence.
Compassionate leave and marriage leave
The Ministry of Manpower lists eight leave types with legal entitlements: annual, sick, maternity, paternity, shared parental, childcare, unpaid infant care and adoption leave. Compassionate leave and marriage leave are not among them.
Whether an employee gets compassionate or marriage leave, and how many days, therefore depends on the employment contract or the company’s policy. Where the contract is silent, the employee can ask to use annual leave or unpaid leave.
What an employer has to keep track of
- The date each employee passes 3 months of service, when leave entitlements start.
- Each employee’s year of service, which sets the annual leave minimum.
- Leave taken and the balance, so that pro-rating on resignation is correct.
- Medical certificates for sick leave claimed.
In MUST
How MUST HRMS handles leave
Staff apply for leave on the mobile app, managers approve in one queue with a full audit trail, and approved leave flows straight into payroll without being typed again. Leave types and approval chains are configured with you at rollout.
Official sources
- MOM: Annual leave eligibility and entitlement
- MOM: Sick leave eligibility and entitlement
- MOM: Leave (list of statutory leave types)
This guide is general information for employers, summarised from the sources above as they stood on 1 October 2026. Rules and rates change; the official source prevails, and this is not legal or tax advice for a specific case.