Leave Payout Calculator South Africa

What this calculator does — and the dispute it prevents

This tool calculates the Section 21 leave payout: the amount owed for accrued, untaken annual leave when employment ends. It converts a monthly salary to the statutory daily rate, multiplies by the untaken days, and shows every step of the working — so the number on the final payslip can be explained to the employee, the accountant and, if it comes to that, a CCMA commissioner.

It also runs an accrual cross-check, because most leave payout disputes are not really formula disputes — they are balance disputes. Leave taken but never recorded, or recorded twice, produces a balance nobody can defend. The cross-check shows what the statutory accrual says the balance should be for the months worked, so an inflated or stale figure gets caught before money moves on it.

The formula, exactly as the Act states it

Section 21 requires leave to be paid at the rate the employee would have earned had they taken the leave. The BCEA converts a monthly salary into that daily rate with a fixed two-step formula — not by dividing the month by 30, and not by dividing by 21.67 working days:

You will often see this written as monthly salary ÷ 21.67 — that is the same statutory formula, rounded: 52 weeks × 5 working days ÷ 12 months = 21.67 average working days per month. This calculator uses the exact form (× 12 ÷ 52 ÷ 5), so the cents match the Act rather than the shorthand.

“Working days per week” is the employee’s actual pattern — 5 for most office and retail staff, 6 where Saturdays are ordinary working days. The divisor matters: the same salary produces a daily rate about 17% lower on a 6-day week, which is why the calculator asks rather than assumes. Half days count at half the daily rate.

A worked example you can check by hand

An employee earning R25,000 per month resigns with 12.5 days of accrued, untaken annual leave, on a 5-day week:

Enter the same figures in the calculator above and you will get the same answer to the cent — the page and the tool run on one formula set, taken straight from the Act.

The accrual check: is the balance itself right?

Section 20 grants 21 consecutive days of annual leave per 12-month cycle — 15 working days on a 5-day week, 18 on a 6-day week — accruing at 1 day per 17 days worked. In practice:

• 5-day week: 1.25 working days accrue per month worked — 8 months into the cycle, the statutory balance is 10 days
• 6-day week: 1.5 working days per month — 8 months in, 12 days
• Contractual leave: many contracts grant 18, 20 or more days per year. The payout must use the actual contractual entitlement — the statutory numbers are a floor, never a ceiling

If the balance being claimed is far above what months-worked × accrual-rate can explain, the record — not the formula — is where the problem lives. Check carried-over days, unrecorded leave taken, and whether a previous payout already covered part of the balance. Our free leave tracker template exists for exactly this reason.

What an employer cannot do with accrued leave

• Forfeit it as a punishment. Accrued statutory leave survives resignation without notice and dismissal for misconduct. The exit being ugly does not change what Section 21 says is owed.
• Pay it out instead of granting it during employment. Section 20(11) forbids paying an employee money in place of the statutory minimum leave while they are still employed — the only lawful cash-out moment for statutory leave is termination.
• Offset it informally. Deductions from the payout are governed by Section 34: written agreement for a specific debt, or a court or arbitration order. “She owes us for the laptop” is not, on its own, a lawful deduction.

What is never paid out — and what employers wrongly withhold

The Section 21 payout covers annual leave only. The other BCEA leave types have no cash value at exit, no matter how many days stand unused:

• Sick leave — the 30-day (5-day week) or 36-day (6-day week) three-year cycle entitlement is insurance, not savings. Unused days lapse; they are never paid out on resignation, dismissal or retrenchment.
• Family responsibility leave — the 3 days per year lapse at the end of each cycle and carry no payout.
• Maternity and parental leave — unpaid by default (UIF benefits run alongside), so there is nothing to pay out.

The reverse mistake is just as common: withholding the annual leave payout as leverage. An employee who resigns without working notice, or who leaves mid-dispute, is still owed every accrued annual leave day — the payout is not conditional on a tidy exit, and holding it back converts a resignation into a money claim the employer loses.

Leave and the notice period — the rule most employers get backwards

Section 20(5)(b) of the BCEA says an employer may not require or permit an employee to take annual leave during a notice period. The instinct — “work your notice as leave so we don’t have to pay it out” — is exactly what the Act forbids: notice must be actual working notice, and the accrued leave must be paid out in money instead. Two consequences follow:

• Resignation letters that say “I am taking my remaining leave as my notice period” do not work either — the same section binds both sides. Notice is worked, leave is paid.
• A public holiday falling inside a period of annual leave does not count as a leave day — the leave extends around it, and a balance reconstructed without this rule under-counts what is owed.

Negative balances, advances and deductions

Leave granted in advance of accrual creates a negative balance at exit — and the employer can only recover it from the final pay if the employee agreed to that in writing when the advance was granted (Section 34). Without the written agreement, the advanced days are simply the employer’s loss; a unilateral deduction from the final payslip is itself a BCEA breach the employee can refer. The same discipline applies to laptops, loans and damage claims: a lawful deduction needs a written agreement for a specific amount, or a court or arbitration order — not a line manager’s sense of fairness.

If the employee dies in service, the calculation does not change — the accrued-leave payout is owed to the deceased estate along with the final salary, and executors do ask for the working.

The tax treatment — the promise employers should not make

A leave payout is ordinary income under PAYE, taxed in full in the month it is paid. It never qualifies for the SARS severance lump-sum tax-free band — not even when it is paid inside a retrenchment package, where the severance portion does. Telling a departing employee “your leave comes out tax-free” is a promise payroll cannot keep; if the exit is a retrenchment, calculate the severance separately with the retrenchment package calculator so each portion gets its correct treatment.

SOUTH AFRICAN LEAVE PAYOUT ON TERMINATION — THE STATUTORY METHOD (BCEA s21)

WHEN IT IS OWED
On EVERY termination — resignation, dismissal (including for misconduct),
retrenchment, or a fixed-term contract ending. Accrued statutory annual leave
cannot be forfeited as a penalty. It is paid with the final pay run.

THE FORMULA
Weekly rate = monthly remuneration x 12 / 52          (BCEA s35(4))
Daily rate  = weekly rate / working days per week     (usually 5, sometimes 6)
Payout      = daily rate x accrued untaken leave days (half days count as 0.5)
Note: the widely-quoted "monthly salary / 21.67" is the SAME formula rounded
(52 weeks x 5 days / 12 months = 21.67 average working days per month).

WORKED EXAMPLE
R25,000/month, 12.5 untaken days, 5-day week:
- Weekly rate: 25,000 x 12 / 52        = R5,769.23
- Daily rate: 5,769.23 / 5             = R1,153.85
- Payout: 12.5 x 1,153.85              = R14,423.08

ACCRUAL CROSS-CHECK (BCEA s20)
Statutory annual leave accrues at 1 day per 17 days worked — in practice
1.25 working days per month on a 5-day week (15 days/year) or 1.5 per month
on a 6-day week (18 days/year). 8 months into a cycle on a 5-day week should
show about 10 days accrued. Contracts often grant more; pay the contractual
entitlement, never less than the statutory one.

TAX
The payout is ordinary income under PAYE in the month of payment, in full.
It NEVER qualifies for the SARS severance lump-sum tax-free band (R550,000
lifetime, 2025/26), even when paid inside a retrenchment package.

Source: Synthro — Leave Payout Calculator (South Africa)
https://www.synthro.io/tools/leave-payout-calculator-south-africa
Formulas last reviewed July 2026 against the BCEA and the 2025/26 SARS tables.