Prorated Vacation Calculator

About this calculator

Prorated vacation (also called accrued or pro-rata leave) is the portion of an employee's full annual vacation entitlement that has been earned based on the fraction of the year actually worked — used when someone starts, leaves, or changes employment status mid-year, since most employers don't grant the full annual allotment on day one. The proration is typically calculated as (days worked ÷ total days in the year) × annual vacation entitlement, though some employers use a per-pay-period accrual rate instead of a simple date-based fraction.

HR departments and payroll teams calculate prorated vacation for new hires who joined partway through the year, employees who moved from part-time to full-time status, and departing employees whose final paycheck must include a cash-out of any unused accrued vacation — a legal requirement in many U.S. states (like California) that treat earned vacation as a form of wages that cannot be forfeited. Employees themselves use this calculation to sanity-check their leave balance and plan time off around how much they've actually accrued so far.

This calculator takes your annual vacation entitlement, the portion of the year you've worked, and any days already taken, and returns how many vacation days you've earned to date and how many remain.