In principle, the entitlement to annual leave also expires within the periods provided for by the Civil Code.
These amount to three years from the end of the calendar year in which the holiday entitlement arose.
However, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has now made the statute of limitations on vacation entitlement subject to a condition (C-120/21).
After the end of the employment relationship, an employee had requested financial compensation for 110 vacation days that she had accumulated from the years 2013 to 2017.
According to the Federal Holidays Act (BUrlG), the holiday entitlement of a calendar year expires if it is not claimed by December 31st.
has been taken.
If there are operational or personal reasons against taking vacation, it can be carried over to the next year.
However, it must be taken by March 31 of the following year.
The only exception to this is in the case of permanent incapacity to work.
The Federal Labor Court (BAG) had already ruled that the holiday entitlement on 31.3.
of the following year only expires if the employer asks the employee to take the holiday and informs him that he will lose his entitlement if he has not taken the holiday by the deadline.
The question remained unanswered as to whether the holiday entitlement would still fall under the statute of limitations and expire after three years.
The ECJ has now answered this question in response to a request from the BAG.
In his judgment of September of this year, he states that the holiday entitlement can only become time-barred if the employer has actually put the employee in a position to exercise this entitlement.
Regina Steiner is a partner in the law firm Steiner Mittländer Fischer in Frankfurt am Main.