Holiday Policy

5 weeks (30 days with Saturdays sometimes, but not Sundays, counted as holidays) is the minimum mandated annual leave by law. Workers are also entitled to 11 paid public holidays on average. After working for the same company for a long period, many employers raise the 30 to 36 days (so-called long holidays).

The BLS reports: Workers with one year of experience average 11 days of paid vacation. Employees with five years of experience average 15 days of vacation. Workers with 10 and 20 years of tenure average 17 and 20 days respectively.

The United States is the only advanced economy that does not federally mandate any paid vacation days or holidays. About one in four workers in the U.S. don't get any paid vacation time or holidays at all. That particularly affects lower-income workers, part-time employees and small business workers.

PTO is considered to be any time an employee is getting paid while away from workit's more all-encompassing than vacation. Think of it like this: all vacation is PTO while not all PTO is vacation. Other examples of PTO include maternity/paternity leave, jury duty, sick leave, holiday pay or disability leave.

The number of days varies from employer to employer, but on average, US workers receive around 10 days of paid holiday each year. In addition, this holiday time is often accrued, which means that US staff will need to be working in their job for 12 months before they're entitled to 10 days of holiday.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average American workers receive 10 days of paid time off per year, after they've completed one year of service. That time doesn't include sick days and holidays. While the number goes up or down a bit, depending on industry and region, 10 is the national average.

How many PTO days do organizations typically give? The standard across most benefits surveys is providing 10 vacation days after at least 1 year of service, 15 vacation days after 5 years of service, 18 vacation days after 10 years of service, and 20 vacation days after 15 years of service.

The average paid vacation days per year for employees who have been with a business for 1-5 years is 10 days. Employees who have been with a business for 5-10 years receive an average of 15 days for vacation. The average number of vacation days employees who have worked at a business between 10-20 years receive is 17.

How many vacation days should you take? LifeHacker recommends taking between seven to 11 days of vacation per year. If you work it correctly around a weekend, you can use less actual workdays for your vacation.