OUR FOCUS: Vacation Pay

Vacation pay in California can be confusing. California PTO laws don’t require employers to provide employees with paid vacations – but if you do work for an employer that does offer paid vacations, there are rules in place to help protect your benefits.

Under California law, earned vacation time is considered wages, and vacation time is earned, as labor is performed. Vacation time can’t “expire,” and if you haven’t used your vacation days, your employer must pay you for them when you leave the job.

In short, vacation pay in California means that employers must allow employees to accrue vacation incrementally or provide them with a lump amount of vacation days to use every year. 

An employer may not have a “use it or lose it” vacation policy, meaning that vacation pay is lost at the end of every year. However, an employer may have a cap on accrual, meaning that employers can set a maximum amount of vacation days that an employee may accrue at any given time. All of your vacation wages must be paid at termination or resignation, and they must be paid at your final rate of pay.

If you feel you are the victim of lost wages due to unpaid accrued vacation pay in California, contact our team of expert California employment attorneys. We can help file a claim to recover the compensation you deserve.