Vacation and additional leave in the Baltics: where the law ends and employer choice begins

2026/06/09

When we talk about vacation, many of us automatically think about summer. July, warm weather, family plans and the school-holiday rhythm we grew up with make summer vacation the natural reference point for many employees.

Working life does not always follow the same rhythm. Not everyone can take vacation in summer, and not everyone wants to. This is why employer leave practices should be discussed not only in terms of the legal minimum, but also in terms of whether and how employers give people additional time to recover.

In this article, we look at what Figure Baltic Advisory’s 2025 compensation survey benefits data shows about vacation and additional leave practices in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The focus is only on vacation and additional leave as recovery time: statutory annual leave, leave beyond the statutory minimum, tenure-based additional leave, additional paid vacation and winter vacation. Paid time off for important life events, such as bereavement, the first school day, health days, marriage, childbirth or birthdays, is a separate topic.

The law sets the baseline

The Baltic countries clearly follow the European model: every employee is entitled to paid annual leave. Therefore, an employer’s value proposition does not start with “we give vacation”. The law already requires that.

The calculation logic differs slightly across the three countries. Estonia defines annual leave in calendar days, Latvia in calendar weeks and Lithuania in working days. In practical terms, all three countries provide approximately four weeks of paid annual leave per year.

For the purposes of this article, holiday pay does not need to be explained in technical detail. The principle is similar across the three countries: annual leave is paid, and holiday pay is linked to the employee’s average earned remuneration, not only to base salary. If an employee has received performance pay, allowances or bonuses, this may affect holiday pay. The exact calculation method differs by country, but the key point for the employer value proposition is the same: statutory annual leave is paid.

Employers come in where they go beyond the law

If the law provides paid annual leave in all three countries, employers start to differentiate when they offer more.

This may mean three things: longer annual leave or additional vacation days for all employees; tenure-based additional leave for long-serving employees; or winter vacation and other forms of additional leave that help spread recovery time throughout the year.

These are the practices discussed in this article. We do not cover all types of paid time off here, but only practices linked to vacation and recovery.

Tenure-based additional leave: recognition of loyalty or statutory baseline?

One common way to provide additional leave is to link it to tenure. The logic is simple and easy for employees to understand: the longer you have been with the organisation, the more vacation time you receive.

In Figure Baltic Advisory’s 2025 benefits data, tenure-based additional leave is most visible in Lithuania and Estonia. In Lithuania, 52% of organisations offer it at least to some employees; in Estonia the figure is 50%. In Latvia, the share is 37%.

At first sight, one might conclude that Lithuanian and Estonian employers use tenure-based additional leave more actively than Latvian employers. However, Lithuania requires an important caveat. Long service with the same employer gives employees a statutory right to additional leave, so part of the Lithuanian responses may reflect a legal obligation, not only a voluntary employer benefit.

The picture is different in Estonia. There is no general statutory tenure-based additional leave. When an Estonian employer offers additional leave linked to tenure, it is more clearly part of the employer’s own value proposition. The same generally applies to Latvia.

Tenure-based additional leave sends a clear message: long-term contribution matters. At the same time, the need for recovery does not always depend on how many years a person has worked for the organisation. Some roles are demanding already in the first year. In some organisations, people with shorter tenure but high responsibility may experience the highest work pressure.

For this reason, tenure-based additional leave should not be the only recovery-oriented leave practice. It is a good way to recognise loyalty, but it does not always reflect actual recovery needs.

Additional paid vacation and winter vacation

Figure’s data also separately shows additional paid vacation that is not winter vacation. In Estonia, 101 organisations reported this practice and the median was 5 days. In Latvia, the corresponding number was 85 organisations and the median was 4 days. In Lithuania, 56 organisations reported it and the median was 5 days.

Winter vacation is less common, but it is an interesting practice from the employer value proposition perspective. In Estonia, 52 organisations reported winter vacation and the median was 5 days. In Latvia, 14 organisations reported it and the median was 4 days. In Lithuania, 20 organisations reported winter vacation and the median was 3 days.

Here, Estonia stands out most clearly. Both additional paid vacation and winter vacation are more visible in the Estonian data than in Latvia and Lithuania. The difference is especially clear for winter vacation: 52 organisations in Estonia reported it, compared with 14 in Latvia and 20 in Lithuania.

One possible explanation is that Estonian employers use additional leave more often as a clearly defined recovery measure. Winter vacation fits organisations where work can be planned to slow down at the end or beginning of the year. It may also be a practical way to give people time off when summer vacation does not cover the full need for recovery.

Latvia shows a different pattern. A relatively high number of organisations reported additional paid vacation, while winter vacation is less common. This may mean that Latvian employers provide additional days on other grounds or do not label them separately as winter vacation.

In Lithuania, the statutory long-service leave must be taken into account. Therefore, the employer’s additional leave policy may have a different focus: the question is not only whether to provide additional days for tenure, but whether to go beyond the statutory leave or offer another recovery-oriented leave practice.

What do the Baltic differences show?

If we look only at statutory annual leave, the Baltic countries are quite similar. In all three countries, employees are entitled to approximately four weeks of paid annual leave. The differences appear in the additional layer.

In Estonia, employer-provided additional leave is more clearly the employer’s own choice. Therefore, additional vacation or winter vacation offered by an Estonian employer may be a very visible part of the value proposition.

In Latvia, the law already provides certain types of paid additional leave, for example for employees with children and for work involving special risks. This may affect how employers build their additional leave policies and which days they highlight as benefits.

In Lithuania, the strongest legal influence is tenure-based additional leave. If a Lithuanian organisation says it offers tenure-based additional leave, this may mean compliance with the law, a more generous practice than the law requires, or both. Therefore, the Lithuanian figure should not be interpreted only as voluntary employer generosity.

This does not mean that one country is better than another. It means that employer leave policy is shaped by law, labour market expectations, work organisation, seasonality and how the organisation itself thinks about recovery.

The Baltic employer dilemma: harmonise days or harmonise the principle?

For a Baltic-wide employer, the most difficult question is not simply how many additional days to provide. The more difficult question is how to make the policy fair, clear, legally compliant and workable in practice.

The first issue is comparability. If an employer gives 5 additional days in Estonia by its own decision, while part of the additional leave in Lithuania is already statutory, the same number of days does not necessarily mean the same value proposition. For employees, the end result may look similar. For the employer, one part is a legal obligation and the other part is a voluntary benefit.

The second issue is harmonisation. In a Baltic-wide organisation, it may be tempting to say that all three countries should have exactly the same number of additional leave days. This may lead to an unfair or unnecessarily costly solution. It may be more reasonable to harmonise the principle: for example, “we support employee recovery beyond the statutory minimum”, while adapting the local solution to national law and market practice.

The third issue is work organisation. Additional leave is valuable for employees, but for the employer it reduces available working time. Work must be replanned, covered or postponed. If additional leave is introduced without clear planning, a recovery-oriented benefit may simply become extra workload for colleagues.

The fourth issue is seasonality. If all vacation is concentrated in summer, questions will arise: who gets the most desirable weeks, how is the work covered, and can employees in summer-intensive roles actually take time off at the same time? Winter vacation or another form of leave spread across the year can help, but only if work organisation supports it.

Vacation only works when people can actually rest

Vacation is not only the number of days away from work. If a person is on vacation in the calendar but still answers emails, takes “just one quick call” or returns to a backlog that has grown uncontrollably, part of the value of vacation is lost.

From a recovery perspective, it is not enough to have leave days written in the HR policy. It also matters whether people can truly disconnect from work. This requires clear rules, reasonable planning, replacement arrangements, leadership role-modelling and a culture where vacation is not seen as a lack of commitment.

A simple test is this: can the employee actually stay away from work while on vacation? If the answer is yes, vacation is a benefit. If the answer is no, it is only a calendar entry.

What should employers review?

Additional leave policies do not have to be complicated, but they must be clear.

First, it is worth separating statutory annual leave, statutory additional leave and employer-provided additional recovery leave. If everything is placed in one basket called “additional days off”, comparisons become unclear and employees may not understand what is a legal right and what is employer added value.

Second, review whether a Baltic-wide policy harmonises the number of days or the principle. Harmonising the exact number of days looks simple, but the legal baseline differs by country. Harmonising the principle may be fairer: employees have an opportunity for additional recovery beyond the statutory minimum, but the concrete solution depends on the country.

Third, assess whether additional leave actually supports recovery or is only a line in the HR policy. If the leave exists but is difficult to use, managers interpret it differently or work piles up during absence, the actual value of the benefit decreases.

Fourth, consider whether tenure-based additional leave is the only right logic. It recognises loyalty, but it may not support employees whose workload is high already in the first years. In some organisations, a combination may work better: part of the leave for tenure, part for recovery for all employees.

Fifth, decide clearly whether winter vacation is a separate benefit, part of work organisation or simply a recommendation to use annual leave during a specific period. If winter vacation is additional employer-provided leave, its value is higher for employees. If it is simply a period when employees are encouraged to use their statutory annual leave, it should be communicated as such.

The law is the minimum. Recovery is a management choice.

Vacation is not only a calendar line. It is a very practical part of the employer value proposition.

Pay is important and comparable. But the quality of working life is also shaped by whether people can recover, whether they can take time off before exhaustion becomes a problem and whether work organisation allows them to truly rest.

Figure Baltic Advisory’s 2025 data shows that Baltic employers move beyond statutory annual leave in different ways. In Estonia, additional paid vacation and winter vacation stand out more clearly. In Lithuania, tenure-based additional leave is more visible, but the figure is influenced by the legal baseline. In Latvia, tenure-based additional leave is less common, while the law provides other types of paid additional leave, for example for employees with children and for work involving special risks.

For employers, the better question is not only “how many additional days do we give?”. The better question is: “what kind of recovery do we want to support, and how can we do it fairly across countries?”

In a Baltic-wide organisation, the best solution may not be the same number of days in every country, but the same principle: the legal minimum is the baseline, and the employer’s additional layer must be clear, comparable and genuinely usable.

Because vacation only works when people can actually rest.

Sources and notes

• Figure Baltic Advisory 2025 Compensation Survey benefits data.
• Estonia: Tööelu portal, “Types of leave” and “Holiday pay”.
• Latvia: Labour Law, Section 149 “Annual Paid Leave”, Section 151 “Supplementary Leave”, Section 73 “Payment of Annual Paid Leave and Supplementary Leave”.
• Lithuania: Ministry of Social Security and Labour, “Work and rest time”; State Labour Inspectorate information on annual leave.
• Recovery research background: de Bloom et al. (2009), “Effects of vacation from work on health and well-being: Lots of fun, quickly gone.” Work & Stress.

Note: This article is a practical HR communication text, not legal advice. Local legal wording should be checked before implementing policy changes.