Which country gets the most paid time off?

Color scale dumb af and USA is fucking backward.

You’re not wrong. I have >30 paid days off a year when you include the holidays, but a lot of my peers have zero. They don’t understand what it means to wake up one morning and just be like… nah, I don’t want to go to work today.

I think this is a good statistic but I'd also recommend looking up the average amount of hours worked per country - I think that paints a better picture of how much time you'll spend working.

I moved to Germany two years ago and the work has been fantastically human-centric, major life over work expectations, and I have no doubt that doesn't apply to everyone in the country but it's been very nice.

it's a wonderful metric because i can look at a graph and weep at sweden being basically the only country where hours worked per year has very noticably gone up for a pretty long time now..

United States over here with literally zero… haha!

not even independence day. absolute cucks to capitalism.
- Seeing a chart like this is absolutely insane.
  I understand folks are debating the accuracy of some of the European countries here, but United States is fucking ridiculous… what a shit show.
land of the free (TM)!
- Free to lie dying in the streets while everyone serious over your body.
TBF, the last time I worked a job that offered no PTO was before COVID.
These days people won't except minimum wage shit jobs with no benefits. If a job becomes too shitty or demanding, Americans just quietly quit and move on to the next thing.

USA, leader of the ~~free~~ indentured servitude world!

Good grief, this map really puts it in perspective.

Curious American farmer here. Who provides the payment for the mandated paid leave? The state or the employer? How does this work for people who are self employed?

Spaniard here. The employer, if you are self employed this doesn't apply.
In Germany also the employer. If you are self employed, my understanding is that you don't have a salary as such, so it doesn't apply. But if you own your own company, where you work (as the CEO or whatever) and have a salary, that company pays you, even if you own it.
Another important point that these overviews don't convey: if you are on vacation (be it abroad or at home) and you get sick, you get your paid leave time back and you can take it another time. There's some asterisks attached to this, but generally that's how it works. There's a big emphasis on the text that your vacation days are yours. To regenerate, just relax or whatever you wanna do. So being sick "doesn't count", basically.
In Japan, employers who have permanent employees need to offer the paid leave. There are various schemes for other special types of leave and there is government assistance. There might be something from smaller companies, but I'm not sure. In Japan, the 10 days is only for 正社員 seishain full-time permanent employees. I think companies can also decide the dates for half of that for you, which is dumb.
The employee. It's a cost of doing business. Just like overtime, sickpay and superannuation. Massive fines in Australia if you don't adhere to them.
The govt funds an ombudsman that helps employees enforce their workplace rights.
The employer, as they should. Obviously if you are a farmer who owns the farm, it might be a little different. We have a rancher in our family and they don’t really get days off, although they can get someone else to do the chores while they go on vacations or what not.

The colour scheme sucks.

Cursed GIS color scheme

I think in most countries there are different nuances when it comes to annual leave, which makes the numbers incomparable. For example, there are differences in whether weekends are counted as part of annual leave, even if the person doesn't normally work weekends. Where I live, Saturday is usually counted as part of your leave unless a union agreement says otherwise.

Where I live there is this thing called 13th salary, basically extra salary on the end of the year, I guess it could be counted a paid leave since it is usually vacation
I guess they accounted for that. There are about 50 Saturdays in a year, if your kind of system was not accounted for, then there would be a clear outlier because of this.
- I think you misunderstood. Let me give a real-life example: My colleague and I both get 30 days of paid leave per year, but we work in different roles and I happen to be under a bit better union agreement where Saturdays don't count. Let's assume we both take all of our leave in one go:
  I'm away from the office for 6 weeks (6 x 5 days = 30 days).
  My friend is only away for 5 weeks (5 x 6 days = 30 days) because Saturdays are counted as part of his holiday, even tho he never works on Saturdays.

France's famous 35-hour-week law means that you legally have to get holidays in lieu of weekly hours worked over that number. In my job I worked (theoretically) 37.5 hours, which earned me 47 paid days off. Not including public holidays.

I think those 47 come from more than the 35h RTT, which generally add about 10 days to the 25 minimum. You probably have some additional branch agreements and company benefits.
- Yep exactly right, it was a particular privileged sector (namely, journalism). But anecdotally, I know it's not completely exceptional.

Yemen? Wasn't expecting that.

Well this map also includes Sudan, I doubt it is possible/useful to make a statistic about a country that is at civil war.

US doesn't have paid public holidays?

Not legally mandated paid holidays. Your employer is not required to give you PTO, sick leave, or paid holidays.
- can you feel the freedom? Land of the free!
My husband applied for a high level management position at a nonprofit and they only sent him the benefits info after his 3 interviews and after he settled on pay. Turns out they only offered 6 days of holidays a year: Christmas Eve and Black Friday didn’t make the list. They offered him 1K more money, twice, but wouldn’t budge on the holiday pay. Fucking incredible if you ask me.
Nationwide mandated paid holidays + paid leaves, meaning no one get left behind.

I guess in the US we have "market based" paid time off like we do with so many other things. The results are the same. Inequality. Poor people put through the grinder and get nothing while the rich just watch numbers go up while life stays exactly the same.

The Netherlands:

minimum of 20 days of paid leave
public holidays are up to the employers to decide, but in practice most public holidays are additional paid leave in most cases
public holidays during the weekend are not moved to weekdays like they are in some other countries

We've got it pretty bad comparatively.

Austria has the most in Europe in theory, but if they fall on a weekend then they dont matter. We dont do the thing that other countries do with "free day afterwards" in these cases.

Same in France

Yemen seems like a bad idea, so off to Libia I go!

My question about Libya, given it literally currently had two governments that control large parts of the country, and is in a frozen civil war, is what Libyan state is this map referring to?

I'm pretty sure that the number for Switzerland is wrong. There's at least 20 days of paid leave and one federal holiday, but in each canton there's at least 6 additional holidays, which makes for an absolute minimum of 27 days of paid leave.

USA should be white. They don't even get up to light blue status.

PTO in the US is at least dependent on which state you’re in. NJ has PTO mandates for full time employees. It’s pathetically low, but still better than most states.

Right. Maps like these always forget the US is more like the EU as its made up of sovereign states.
And totally agree, the states can, and should, do a hell of a lot better.

The image says that it is including public holidays, but Spain’s number is not.

There are 14 mandated public holidays (8 at national level, 4 by region and 2 local ones).

And Belgium is also missing 12 days since the workweek is 38 hours but in effect that's just given out as 12 more holidays.
- That wouldn't make sense in this graph as then you'd get into the minutia of that happening everywhere like Québec being 37.5h as full time

If you work at sea with a favourable contract, you can be off for 182 days a year.

With an unfavorable contract, you could be permanently enslaved at sea for years at a stretch for no pay.
- Yeah, the likes of the Filipino contracts, especially during covid, were downright heartless, to say the very least.

GOP: "Filthy evil socialism by country. USA best #1, 0 Socialism, all hail glorious leader!"

The Divided States of Trashcanistan looking good again.

Stealing that, fellow trashcanistanian here.

Love how 30 looks almost as pale as 0

Hell yeah, best of Latin America

This is most likely very inaccurate following what the law says. In Germany a full-time employee has the right to (must take) 20 days paid leave, however many people have 30 with just very few having the minimum of 20 (I don’t know anyone in in their 30s have this few). It is mostly for student workers or other in between jobs. The statistic instead should be based on average paid-leave taken.

Second paragraph is wrong - UK law mandates 20 paid days off, plus there are 8 paid public holiday days

Technically not true, companies don't have to give you bank holidays off as long as you get the right number of days in total (e.g. shops that are open on bank holidays), it's just that most places just give you the bank holidays (so the image is technically correct but a bit misleading)

Cannot understand American employer's reluctance to give out PTO. Someone check my logic?

Regardless of PTO granted, the employer is going to be paying $X for 40-hours a week, 52 weeks a year. They're out nothing!

The obvious counter is that they're out that employees productivity. Now think about the places you've worked. Unless it's a fairly high-end, specialized job, the work is getting done regardless. When someone on your team takes PTO, everyone else picks up the slack.

For a large company there is an argument to be made that they have to hire more people to fill in the rotating PTO gaps through the year. A new employee is a significant cost. Recruiting, advertising, HR and IT onboarding, training, and one no one thinks or knows about, the upfront costs of unemployment insurance.

As much As I agree that pto needs to be required, it's simply pure white collar thinking to think that more people don't need to be hired to cover for vacations. In blue collar, labor jobs, the employer needs to hire temp workers (as my area does) or give other employees considerably more hours(some locals have flex employees that do pt most of the year and ft during vacation periods). The employer is out the wages it costs to pay the cover, it is not free. And the employer should be paying that.
- New employees cost real money. Posted this yesterday:
  Advertising, interviewing, HR and IT onboarding, extra unemployment taxes on the initial income, training, all that stacks. Also, consider how useless a new employee is vs. one that's been on task for some time. And that employee is taking valuable time from an experienced worker!
  People are a pain in the ass, I'm sure we'll agree. :) More people, more pain in the ass. The woman who handled scheduling at Lowe's caught grief every day. Well fuck me, she's not trained in HR and has to deal with 200 people's wants and needs. I felt sorry for her.
  But back on topic,
  The employer is out the wages it costs to pay the cover
  That's the point I can't get my head around. The employer is already paying X people for Y job. Someone getting PTO costs them nothing as the remaining people work harder to cover. Does that make sense? I feel my argument is lacking common sense I'm not seeing.

The Netherlands is not the worst to live, but I for one could use a few days extra off for sure…

So a map that shows who is required to give the most time off. One can still give more than is required.

In Australia, it's rare to get more than 4 weeks. Government jobs will often give 6 weeks, but the minimum is 4 weeks, and most companies don't deviate from that.

The relative size of continents in this image can get hilarious at times. The west is truly brainrot.

Part of me doesn't believe this because based on my experience with our Mumbai office those fuckers are constantly off.

According to my swiss friend they actually have 4 weeks of paid time off, so I'm confused.

Japan has 16 public holidays, at least according to this: https://publicholidays.jp/2025-dates/

What about paid public holidays?
- 0 of them are specifically codified in employment law as paid time off or a day to be taken off, however are considered by default as non-work days in law so working that day would, in most cases be entitled to overtime pay increase or alternatively a replacement day off. They are also culturally accepted as days off, and there are other holidays like Obon festival next week where taking time off is very common.
  Technically speaking the minimum is zero paid leave for new employees, but after a continuous 6 months of 5 days or 30h/week work or more with good attendance, an employee is entitled by law to 10 days of paid leave (likely the figure cited) which scales gradually each year to 20 at 6.5 years tenure. Part time employees receive a partial entitlement which is as little as 1 day off if 48-72 days is worked in a year (1 day/week).
  So it's complicated, unless the source for the map used a standard method for all countries to compare equally (e.g. a full time employee's minimum legal entitlement after 12 months at a company).

when Yemen is the top of the pack, one starts to wonder... maybe what we're presenting isn't a great measurement of human happiness?

It's paid time off dude, these aren't happiness stats
- cool... wonder why people are acting like they want to go to Yemen or Libya because of this map then. maybe because we're inferring degrees of life satisfaction from a statistic that doesn't really signify that. I'm just restating my original point now though.
  anyway, I'm glad you agree with me that federally mandated PTO levels isnt a great measurement of happiness. please let the other commenters know if you see them misinterpreting the data
But also the US with zero paid days is like literally imploding. So maybe it has a little to do with happiness
- it certainly helps! I love all the holidays in korea. never realized they were mandatory
  "it's a fishing license... and it's mandatory!"

Lol, all of the Mexican countries wreck the US in paid time off

mexican countries???
- Yeah, the Mexican countries from Fox News.
"Mexican countries". That's where they speak Mexican, right? Peak US geography right here.

While not all places will give PTO or weekly paid holidays, the US still has federal holidays that cause most businesses to close. Even people in essential fields are still required to take the day off if they are salary.

There is no law, because essential fields or individual businesses can still be working. US should at least have 7 days for the 7 paid federal holidays. Getting time and a half on a holiday counts as it being recognized as a holiday for essential jobs.

Also interesting reading the comments about how many other countries are wrong. I have a hunch this entire graphic is wrong.

Edit: leave it to Lemmy to down vote accurate information just to spread unnecessary hate for everyone's hate boner.

No amount of anecdotal bullshit will change the FACT THAT USA HAS FEDERAL HOLIDAYS and this graphic is WRONG.

A day off is not even remotely the same as paid time off.
There’s no excuse for the United States being the shit stain that it is.
- The 7 paid federal holidays are either paid time off, or time and a half depending on your job and employer.
While not all places will give PTO or weekly paid holidays, the US still has federal holidays that cause most businesses to close.
Not really accurate to count all federal holidays, and a lot of businesses don't close even on the ones you can't count.
Even people in essential fields are still required to take the day off if they are salary
Nah, people like healthcare workers still have to show up on holidays. Actually it's often some of our busiest times of the year. We're usually offered pto that we can choose to take some time else if we work on holidays.
There is no law, because essential fields or individual businesses can still be working. US should at least have 7 days for the 7 paid federal holidays.
There is only 6 holidays where the majority (77%) of American workers are offered some kind of PTO, and that's only accounting for people who are working full time.
There is no law because America doesn't care about its workforce. Other countries have essential employees as well, they are just compensated differently.
^leave it to Lemmy to down vote accurate information just to spread unnecessary hate for everyone's hate boner.
Nah, there just plenty of people here who have had to work on holidays and know you are full of shit.
- My bad, I forgot EMS and other essential workers don't go to work in other countries during holidays. Thanks for informing me. No need to understand time and a half when 0.00% of people work.
  It's very important to make sure we only apply a rule to one country and not the others for an info graphic. Double standards are great, aren't they. Resume your incorrect hate boner.
Also interesting reading the comments about how many other countries are wrong. I have a hunch this entire graphic is wrong.
I certainly would not be surprised if there are some inaccuracies, but of the comments I've read so far suggesting that the numbers don't capture the truth appear to be misunderstanding what the data is showing (nationwide statutory paid time off and paid public holidays).
As an example, you mentioned the 7 paid federal holidays in the USA. But similar to some of the other observations in question, those aren't what this graphic is capturing. Outside of government jobs and maybe certain industries, those 7 public holidays are not required by statute on a nationwide level -- it's not even close to applying to everyone. Even if we agree that most jobs give people paid time off (but not because they are legally required to) or that some states require it, that's still not what this graphic is showing, so those don't make the 0 in any way inaccurate.
In my home state I "earn" one paid hour sick time for every 30 hours worked. I get no other paid time off because it isn't required by law. Working for the same company in a different state I get exactly zero paid time off because that state doesn't have a law requiring it. Tell me again how that isn't zero paid time off.