How long can employers hold onto vacation pay after leaving company?

Answer 1

Laws may vary from state to state, but in those I'm familiar with, on your last day of employment, the company must pay you all earnings to date plus all accrued vacation pay. The amount of vacation pay is to be based on the rules of the company, so it is not necessarily paid for a fixed number of weeks or days.

Also, there may be cases where none is owed, even though you think there should be. Some companies give vacation based on years of service - say one week after one year, two weeks after two years for example. You earn that vacation by completing the service required, so let's say you're hired in October 2000. You're not due any vacation until October 2001, and then next year until October 2002 and so on. But many companies allow you to take vacation by the calendar year, and you can actually take and be paid for vacation you've stil not earned. If you leave the company (either resign or discharge) before the anniversary of your hire, they owe you nothing - even though you might have been able to take vacation and be paid earlier in the year.

Answer 2

It depends. Some companies have "Personal Time Off", in which you are allowed to take up to a certain number of days off a year, for whatever reason you want, at full pay. This is very different than vacation pay.

Vacation is IN ADDITION to your regular job. If you get 2 weeks of vacation a year, and you instead worked 52 weeks and you did not take those 2 weeks vacation, then you are entitled to 54 weeks of pay. Some employers will allow you to carry over that vacation instead of paying you out for the year.

PTO is a benefit - you can choose to take time off at full pay. If you choose not to exercise that benefit, then that's you're tough luck. So if you get 4 weeks PTO a year, and you quit after half a year, you had 2 weeks PTO accrued. However, if you CHOSE not to take those 2 weeks off, if instead you worked every day of those 6 months, then you have elected not to take advantage of the PTO benefit, and you forfeit the PTO. In that case, you get no money at all.

Assuming you had vacation time, you should get paid out immediately after resigning.

Answer 3

They can't, if contractually or by policy, they've agreed to pay you for it as regular pay if you leave with vaca time on the books and haven't used it. It should come at the same time as a regular check, unless you owe them money or the company anticipates that they will need to make adjustments to your final check. This might cause a slight delay.

Answer 4

in the state of illinois it one month