How to properly register and take into account unpaid leave

Last modified: January 2021

When emergency situations arise, you often have to be absent from work. Salaried employees have the right to ask the employer to provide unpaid leave at their own expense. Depending on the social status of a person and the reasons for absence, labor legislation provides for a certain number of days that employees can count on, and explains whether leave can be required by law.

Unpaid leave is provided in addition to the main one and, unlike regular rest, requires approval from management, with the exception of some cases when you have no right to refuse. The reasons that are often indicated in the application include important family or personal events and social needs.

Who can take it

The list of persons who can go on vacation without keeping their wages is prescribed by the Labor Code of the Russian Federation No. 197 of January 30, 2001, in Art. 128 paragraph 2. The following employees are required to be allowed to rest upon expressing their desire:

1. Participants of the Second World War.
2. Old age pensioners who continue to work.
3. Family members of military personnel and employees who died in the performance of duties or from injuries received in service.
4. Disabled people who work.
5. All employees at the birth of a child, marriage, burial of a blood relative.

In the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Articles 173 and 174 provide the following additional list of persons who should be given leave without pay:

• employees entering universities and professional educational institutions;
• persons who work and study at universities at the same time;
• for those who combine work and study at a university, secondary specialized educational institution or for the period of certification.

If an employee combines positions, the second leave for a non-main position may be shorter; he has the right to ask for days at his own expense so that the terms in both jobs are equal.

By agreement with the employer

For personal reasons or other justifications, when an employee applies, the manager may place him on administrative leave. This is possible if an agreement is reached between the parties, but is not an obligation for the employer. Therefore, both the objectivity of the identified reasons and the damage that may be caused to the labor process due to the employee’s absence from the workplace are taken into account.

The justification that is written in an employee’s application for leave without pay is private information about the person. The employer is obliged to preserve this personal information in accordance with the law adopted on July 27, 2007 No. 152. Personal reasons include significant events and needs, but the employer does not have the right to send employees on such leave at his own whim.

Can an employer, on his own initiative, send an employee on vacation at his own expense?

Very often, when an organization begins to have financial problems, or production volumes decrease, the administration decides to send some of the employees on leave without pay, and thereby save money. After all, downtime that occurs due to the fault of the employer himself must also be paid by him according to the standards established by the Labor Code.

As a rule, the director calls the required employee and verbally invites him to draw up an application for leave without payment of salary for a given period.

However, the administration needs to remember that forcing employees of an enterprise to write such statements is strictly prohibited by law.

If the employee can subsequently prove that he was forced to write a statement and go on vacation without his desire, then the company administration will be subject to appropriate punishment, and it will also be necessary to accrue and pay the employee a salary for all those days when he was on forced leave.

Attention! Another situation in which the administration may suggest writing an application for leave retroactively is when a valuable employee has been absent or absent from work without having supporting documents.

This will make it possible to close days of absence without applying disciplinary measures to the employee. In this case, in order to receive leave without accruing payment for it, it is also necessary to draw up an application addressed to the director.

This step is very attractive for the guilty employee - not only will he not receive punishment, but he will also retain his job. However, in this case, management needs to know that it will no longer be possible to fire someone for this absence in the future, since it will not be documented on paper, and according to the report card, this employee was absent from the place with the permission of the administration.

Documentary support

If the parties agree, the employee draws up an application according to the sample. It must contain the following mandatory parts:

• to whom: the position of the chief, his last name, initials and name of the organization;
• from whom: position, structural unit, full name of the employee;
• the main part, which describes the period and reason;
• Below is the current date, signature and surname with the initials of the employee.

The immediate supervisor and director put their signature and consent on the application form. With the consent of all parties, an order or instruction is issued according to the model adopted by the institution on letterhead or with the obligatory indication of the organization’s details. It must contain the following mandatory data:

• Full name of the employee;
• cause;
• the date when the employee goes on leave and the duration of the period.

The information is entered into the personal card and the work sheet. The employee is familiarized with the order under his personal signature.

The period of administrative leave is specified in Article 128 for those to whom it is granted immediately upon application. The rest of the employees coordinate the period directly with their superiors. The employee may return to work before the expiration of the period specified in the application. The time and period for registration of this type of vacation is not associated with annual paid leave and other additional days off.

Are weekends or holidays included?

Sometimes HR specialists make mistakes when marking days of rest without payment of wages on the time sheet. This arises due to the fact that the Labor Code does not directly indicate whether the rules established for ordinary vacations can be applied in this situation.

Most questions arise because the personnel officer does not know whether weekends and holidays need to be taken into account as part of such leave.

Holidays need to be taken into account. This is based on the fact that the rules for accounting for holidays as part of vacations are established only for standard annual paid leave, as well as additional ones.

With regard to days recognized as days off, the Labor Code does not contain any exceptions when determining the periods of annual and additional leave. This means that this rule will apply to both paid and unpaid rest time.

Thus, when a personnel specialist determines the duration of rest without pay for these days, he needs to count both weekends and holidays as part of it.

It is important to remember that the period of provision of paid leave depends on the number of days of unpaid leave. The Labor Code establishes that only 14 unpaid days can be included annually in the annual leave period. If the employee needs to get more time, then all days over 14 will be moved forward to the end of the working year.

Attention! But in such a situation, you can use one trick. The law does not prohibit breaking vacation without pay into any number of small parts. You can take advantage of this by excluding all weekends and holidays from the requested period - the entire employee will rest on these days anyway.

This can be applied in the following way. The employee fills out two vacation applications, in each of which he enters the period from Monday to Friday. As a result, he gets two full weeks of rest, but only 10 days will be documented. Moreover, he still has 4 unclaimed days, which he can take in the future.

Accounting Features

An employer cannot send employees on unpaid leave when there is downtime at the enterprise, there are no orders, or for other reasons. Administrative leave is a personal initiative, and coercion on the part of an employee to write a “voluntary” statement will entail punishment for officials or founders of the enterprise. In the Code of Administrative Offenses in Article 5.27 the following material penalties are prescribed for this:

• for officials 1000-5000 rubles;
• for individual entrepreneurs 1000-5000 rubles or suspension of work for up to 90 days;
• for legal entities 30,000-50,000 or administrative suspension of work for up to 90 days.

If the situation is repeated, then an administrative fine cannot be imposed on officials; a preventive measure in the form of professional disqualification for a period of 1 to 3 years is applied to them.

When an enterprise cannot give work to its team, it is obliged to recognize downtime, and for this time the employees will be paid in an amount of no less than 2/3 of the established salary.

If an employee takes leave without pay for a period of up to 14 calendar days, then it is included in his work experience. All days do not have to be consecutive, it can be the total number of days without pay during one year. When administrative leave exceeds 14 days for the current calendar year, then next year annual leave with pay will be postponed by the same number of days, in excess of 14. This is stated in Art. 121 Labor Code of the Russian Federation.

The calculation of periods of work that gives the right to proportional paid rest or compensation upon dismissal is calculated as follows. If an employee’s excess days are less than 15 days, then they are not taken into account in the calculation; if more than half a month, then they are rounded up to the whole month. The number of unspent days of paid leave is calculated based on a coefficient of 2.33 days for each full month worked. Every year, before March 1, accounting employees are required to submit a SZV-experience report, which indicates all the data about employees, periods of time worked, annual paid and non-paid vacations.

In what case cannot an employer refuse leave at his own expense?

Regulatory acts list situations in which an employee must be granted leave without pay.

Such situations include:

• When a newborn appears in the family of a company employee, a document confirming the birth of the child.
• If employees of the company get married - a marriage document.
• When a close family member dies - a death certificate.

In each of these situations, the employee working at the enterprise is entitled to leave without pay for five days.

Certain categories of working citizens can take advantage of additional unpaid rest in accordance with the law. In these cases, it is not necessary to obtain consent from the administration.

These include:

• Working pensioners - this category has the right to 14 days of such a period within one year.
• Persons who participated in the Second World War can count on leave without pay for 35 days.
• For employees who have a disability group, their vacation time without pay can be up to 60 days in one year.
• For employees who are family members of military personnel who were killed or died while performing official assignments, unpaid leave for this category can last 14 days.
• In situations expressly specified in federal legislation. For example, when combining work and full-time study, if the employee has several employers, when caring for children, etc.

The employer himself, in his regulations, may provide for situations where his employees may be granted additional periods of leave without pay. In such situations, when the employee’s case falls within the one specified in the Collective Agreement, the administration is also obliged to provide rest days to this employee.

Preferential categories of citizens have the right to take leave without pay for the entire stipulated period, or to break it up in parts throughout the year. In this case, the total number of days of unpaid leave must be observed. It is allowed to exceed it for these categories, but for this you will then have to obtain the consent of management.

Attention! An employee may belong to several benefit categories, but then the duration of leave should not be summed up. As a rule, such workers choose the most favorable conditions.

Maximum term

The number of days that employees can count on is regulated by Article 128 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation or by mutual agreement of the parties between employers and employees. The deadlines did not change in 2021 or 2021. The data is shown in the table.

All days that the employee spent on vacation without pay are subsequently excluded from the calculation periods to calculate the amount of average earnings, regardless of how many days were unpaid.

Those persons who, according to the Labor Code, are entitled to unpaid leave in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 178, are included in their seniority.

It is important to remember that employers have the right to provide students and persons undergoing training with educational leave with pay.

Guarantees for the employee during absence from work

During the period of leave without pay, the employee does not lose his place at the enterprise. An employer cannot fire a citizen just like that. This can only happen when the enterprise is liquidated or the activities of the individual entrepreneur are suspended.

When an employee is on unpaid leave, the employer will not pay for his sick leave for the same time. But the employer will pay for sick leave for women in labor, because the employee is on the list of insured persons. In addition, if a woman was on vacation without pay, but urgent sick leave was opened, then the vacation is interrupted from the start date of the sick leave. Funds received for childbirth can be credited to the account linked to any card that the employee indicates. To do this, just indicate the current account where the transfer is to be made.

During the period of administrative leave, employees retain the right to tax deductions. If a citizen has no income at all, then these deductions accumulate.

about the author

Klavdiya Treskova - higher education with qualification “Economist”, with specializations “Economics and Management” and “Computer Technologies” at PSU. She worked in a bank in positions from operator to acting. Head of the Department for servicing private and corporate clients. Every year she successfully passed certifications, education and training in banking services. Total work experience in the bank is more than 15 years. [email protected]

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What does it affect?

Using the right to additional days, the employee loses earnings for the period of his absence, i.e. he retains his position, but no salary is accrued for the specified period.

As a result, the indicators for the amount of earnings and length of service, often used by accounting departments when calculating payment for sick leave, may change.

When intending to use the right to unpaid leave, it is necessary to take into account that if the employee is absent from work for more than 2 weeks, the employee loses part of his seniority when the next regular leave is subsequently calculated.

For example, if a person was absent for 21 days, then only 7 days will be deducted from the length of service (14 days are not taken into account).

Comments: 2

Your comment (question) If you have questions about this article, you can tell us. Our team consists of only experienced experts and specialists with specialized education. We will try to help you in this topic:

Author of the article: Klavdiya Treskova

Consultant, author Popovich Anna

Financial author Olga Pikhotskaya

1. Elena
   01/26/2020 at 17:35 Tell me, does a disabled person with the third disability group have the right to be denied leave without pay or not? Thank you.
   Reply ↓ Klavdiya Treskova
   01/26/2020 at 17:58 Posted by

   In the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Article 128, paragraph 2, contains a list of persons to whom employers are obliged to provide leave without pay. It also includes working disabled people. To do this, the employee must write an application addressed to the manager, on the basis of which an order will be issued. The duration of such leave for a disabled employee cannot exceed 60 days for the entire calendar year.

   Reply ↓

How to register

To go on unpaid leave, you must follow the procedure for taking leave at your own expense and document the event:

1. The employee draws up an application addressed to the head of the organization. The text reflects the reason for the impossibility of being present at the workplace for a specific number of days. Some organizations have their own internal forms, in which you only need to enter personal information and indicate the reason.
2. The written document is submitted to management for review. It is important that the application contains an approval visa, which will allow the employee’s legal absence to be perceived as absenteeism with subsequent disciplinary action.
3. To avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to control the issuance of an order to provide several days at your own expense. The order is signed by the director of the enterprise.

Download a sample application for leave at your own expense (33.0 KiB, 550 hits)

If circumstances change, the citizen has the right to return and begin work duties ahead of schedule; the accounting department, at the same time, recalculates the number of days worked per month. Early recall from an agreed leave at the initiative of the employer is possible only with the consent of the employed citizen.

Vacation documents

There are three types of documentation related to unpaid leave:

1. Statement. Compiled in free form, using a sample application, or on a special form developed within the enterprise. Mandatory details must include: full name of the manager in whose name the appeal is written, full name of the employee, reasons and grounds according to the law. The document is valid only after signature by the applicant indicating the date.
2. The documents attached to the application will allow you to quickly obtain permission from the employer. Depending on the reason, the applicant encloses a certificate of the death of a relative, the designated date of marriage registration, and the birth of a child.
3. Director's order in form T-6. After receiving visa approval, an order is issued on temporary release from duties for an agreed period. Responsible employees are required to familiarize the applicant with the order, which is confirmed by the signature. In the absence of this document, the personnel service has the right to dismiss the absent employee for absenteeism or punish in another way.

How is vacation at your own expense reflected in internal documentation?

In the event of an agreed absence from the workplace without payment, the accounting department and the human resources department are required to make appropriate changes in the reporting:

• put a mark on the personal card in the T-2 form;
• reflect the absence of a person in the T-12/T-13 time sheet in the form of a coded entry.

Depending on the grounds for providing additional days of rest, the following designations are entered in the working time sheet:

• “ML” in the presence of circumstances provided for by law;
• “DO” - by agreement with the management of the enterprise;
• “UD” in case of absence from work due to study;
• “DB” when providing regular additional rest.