Vacation and sick leave in PR: calculate what you accrue

How much you accrue each month

The right is triggered by hours: Act 180 of 1998 provides that every employee is entitled to a minimum accrual of vacation and sick leave by working **at least 130 hours a month**. If in a given month you do not reach those hours, that month does not accrue.

Vacation accrual rises with your years of service. These are the minimum monthly rates set by Article 4:

• First year of service: **½ day** of vacation per month.
• After the first year and up to 5 years: **¾ of a day** per month.
• After 5 years and up to 15: **1 day** per month.
• After 15 years of service: **1¼ days** per month.
• Sick leave: **1 day for each month**, regardless of your years of service.
• Exception for Puerto Rico resident employers with **12 employees or fewer**: vacation accrual is ½ day per month always, even after years of service. Sick leave stays at 1 day per month.

Calculate your accrued days

Pick your years of service and how many months you have been accruing, and see the estimated vacation and sick days you are due under the current scale.

If you worked there before 2017, your rates are different

The rates above are the ones the 2017 Labor Reform left in place. The law expressly protects those who were already there: an employee who worked for an employer before the Labor Transformation and Flexibility Act took effect, and who by law was entitled to higher monthly accrual rates, **continues enjoying those earlier rates** while they keep working for the same employer.

And there is a lock: the law declares it an **illegal employment practice** for an employer to dismiss, remove or indefinitely suspend an employee who worked there before the Reform in order to change those conditions. If you have been at the same place for over a decade and suddenly they want to move your status, that is the line to read.

The small-employer exception has its own clock too. It lasts while the payroll does not exceed twelve employees, and ends the calendar year following the one in which the employer exceeds twelve employees for more than 26 weeks in each of two consecutive calendar years. Meaning: a company that grew does not stay on the reduced rate forever.

Who Act 180 does NOT apply to

Before counting days it is worth confirming the act covers you, because its **Article 6** removes four groups from **the entire act**, not only from accrual. And the exclusion does not look like what most people assume.

**Public employees, with one exception that matters.** It does not apply to people employed by the **Government of the United States** or by the **Government of Puerto Rico**, **except** those Puerto Rico agencies or instrumentalities **that operate as private businesses or enterprises**. Nor does it apply to people employed by **municipal governments**. If you work at a public corporation operating as a business, that exception is the one to check before writing yourself off as excluded.

**Administrators, executives and professionals.** Subsection (b) excludes them, but note by what yardstick: **as those terms are defined in Regulation Number 13 of the Minimum Wage Board**. It is not whatever criterion one imagines, nor the title on your contract; it is a specific regulation, and that is where the question of whether your position falls inside gets settled.

**Employees under a collective agreement, but only on one condition.** Subsection (c) excludes those covered by an agreement between a labor organization and an employer **«provided their wage is equal to or greater than that established under the provisions of this Act»**. That closing clause is half the rule and is almost never quoted: the exclusion is conditional. If the agreement’s wage does not reach that floor, the condition is not met.

The practical part: if you believe you were wrongly excluded, the document that decides is not your company handbook but Article 6 and, for administrators, executives and professionals, Regulation 13. Ask in writing under which of the four subsections they classified you.

How «one day» is calculated

A day is not always eight hours, and this is where many calculations fall apart. Leave accrues based on the regular workday in the month in which the accrual occurred. If your schedule fluctuates, the regular day is determined by dividing total regular hours worked in the month by total days worked. And if your schedule cannot be determined, it is computed on eight-regular-hour days.

When paid, leave is paid at no less than the regular hourly wage you earned in the month it accrued. If you work on commission or incentives not left entirely to the employer's discretion, the total earned in the year may be divided by 52 weeks to compute the regular hourly wage.

If you earn tips, or the employer shares service charges with you, vacation and sick pay is calculated at the **legal minimum wage or the agreed regular hourly wage, whichever is greater**. That detail matters in restaurants and hotels, where base pay tends to be low and tips make up the rest.

A note on probation: if the employer sets a legally authorized probationary period, **sick leave accrues from the start of probation**. And any employee who passes probation accrues **vacation from the date they started the job**, not from when they passed. Using vacation or sick leave counts as time worked for continued accrual.

When you can take them and how much can pile up

You cannot demand to take vacation until you have accrued a year of it. It is granted annually, in a way that does not interrupt the company's normal operation, and the employer sets the rotations. It is taken consecutively, though by agreement it can be split, with one condition the law does not leave negotiable: you must take **at least five consecutive workdays** of vacation in the year.

By agreement between employer and employee, up to **two years** of vacation leave may accumulate. And here comes the penalty almost nobody knows: an employer who does not grant vacation after that maximum accrues must grant the full accrued total **and pay the employee twice the corresponding salary** for the period in excess of the maximum.

Sick leave you do not use during the year carries over to successive years, up to a **maximum of fifteen days**. Anything beyond that stops accumulating.

At your written request, the employer may allow partial liquidation of accrued vacation **in excess of ten days**; that is, cashing part of it out instead of taking it. It is optional for the employer, not a right of yours.

The illness does not always have to be yours

The law lets you use up to **five days** of your sick leave, as long as you keep a balance of five, to care for the illness of your children, your spouse, your mother or your father. It also covers minors, elderly people or people with disabilities under your custody or legal guardianship.

The limit on this benefit: it **does not apply to businesses with fifteen employees or fewer**. At a small company, those days are only for your own illness.

Except in force majeure, you must notify the employer as soon as it is foreseeable that you will be absent, and no later than the same day of the absence. And using leave does not exempt you from the employer's reasonable rules: attendance, punctuality, periodic reports and **medical certifications if the absence exceeds two workdays**, certifications that also apply when the illness is that of the family member you cared for.

In emergencies declared by the Governor or the Health Secretary, an employee who has or is suspected to have the illness that caused the emergency may, after exhausting sick leave, use all accrued leave they are entitled to. If they remain ill, they are granted **paid emergency leave of up to five workdays**.

When employment ends, and a protection people forget

If your employment ends (whether you resign or are dismissed) the employer must pay you the total vacation accrued up to then, **even if it is less than a year**. That money is not lost by leaving before the year is up. Accrued sick leave, by contrast, the law does not require to be paid out on separation.

And a protection worth gold that almost nobody invokes: no employer, supervisor or representative may use **justified** sick absences as an efficiency criterion when evaluating you for raises or promotions. Nor may they consider those absences, or the special emergency leave, properly charged to your sick leave, to justify disciplinary actions such as suspensions or dismissals.

If the employer did not pay out your accrued balance or docked days that were properly charged, that is a wage claim like any other, and it is filed through the summary procedure of Act 2 of 1961, the same one our guide on what to do when an employer does not pay explains.