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Changes to annual leave laws?

0 points · submitted Dec 2025 by u/Ark42 · Jobs · archived

Our 13 employee company is updating the work rules to follow recent changes to the law, as I understand it. I'm being told that we must use 5 days of annual leave per year, or the company can specify 5 days for any individual employee who doesn't take any. That seems fine, but the nuance is that those 5 days must come from the pool of annual leave received for that year. Which means, you cannot roll over 100% of your annual leave to a second year any more. Many people typically get their 20 new days, and use 20 days throughout the year, and keep rolling over 20 days, always using from the "older" pool of days, but I'm being told this is no longer legal. Has anybody else had similar changes in their company rules recently?

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lasagne_larry 41 points · Dec 2025

This has been the law for a long time. Full time employees must take at least 5 days of annual leave per year. The company is obligated to enforce it. It is to protect against employees being power harassed into never using annual leave.

https://www.tokhimo.com/post/how-annual-leave-in-japan-work-1

Mercenarian 14 points · Dec 2025 · 九州・長崎県

Yeah I was going to say it’s been at least 3 years since it’s been like that since at least I started my seishain job.

But yeah that’s it, you must use 5 days per year so no you can’t roll over 100% of them. The company will start getting on the employees butts to take their paid leave if it’s almost April and they still have days left.

Ark42 [OP] 6 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

If I take 20 days off each year, but get 20 more each year, my balance normally goes from 20 up to 40, then slowly back down to 20 over the year. I'm always using "last years" pool and banking the full 20 each year "just in case" and I suspect a lot of other people do this as well.

Mercenarian 1 points · Dec 2025 · 九州・長崎県

Okay but you’re supposed to be using them before the year is up. If you join a company in April 2025 and get 12 paid days off you’re supposed to use 5 before April 2026. So if you got 13 days off added in April 2026 the maximum you would be able to have at that point is 20 days (12-5+13). If you have 21-25 days then you messed up and you didn’t use 5 days like you were supposed to

Ark42 [OP] 1 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Don't focus on new hires so much, I think. It still works out just fine though, if you just follow through into the 2nd and 3rd years...

But to your example, if you get 12, use 5, roll over 7, then get 13 more, you have 20 (7+13) now. If you take 5 days off in the second year, you're left with 15, but is is 2+13 or 7+8? Pretty sure the obvious answer is 2+13, you should always use the older pool first, and those 2 days are still going to expire when you get the 14 more for the next year. My company seems confused by this 2019 law and wants to update our work rules so that you'd have 7+8 at this point, and need to take a further 7 days off to avoid them expiring, when you get 14 new days, leaving you with 8+14 at the start of your 3rd year, instead of 13+14.

Ark42 [OP] 2 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Yeah, you're right, the law is from 2019 it seems. We're just slow to update the official work rules I guess. And I doubt anybody here isn't using 5 or more days all along anyway.

JumpingJ4ck 3 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

You should absolutely make sure everyone is using at least 5 though and enforce that to not be breaking the law. I’m sure you’re right but don’t just assume.

Ark42 [OP] 3 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Of course. They're updating the rules either way. I'm not HR. They just seem confused about if the 5 days you have to use can come from the rolled over pool of annual leave or not...

c00750ny3h 7 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Usually you can only roll over 1 years worth of PTO.

If you had 10 days roll over from 2024, got 20 more days in 2025, took 10 ptos and fully consumed the 2024 rollovers, then I don't see why your 20 ptos from 2025 won't roll into 2026.

billj04 3 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Yes, my company did a similar change this year, but they didn't have this bit about it having to come out of the current year's days, only that there had to be at least 5 days off. They basically just designated 5 weekend days as days of PTO to ensure they're complying with the rule.

ITS_A_GUNDAAAM 2 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

That’s pretty much what my old company did. Additionally if there was a holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday, then they’d designate the Monday or Friday as a ‘company holiday’ to give people a four-day weekend and make a Saturday a ‘work day but you should really really really take PTO on that day instead’ day. They actually gave us like an extra five days PTO than are legally necessary for that purpose.

Ark42 [OP] 1 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

I think it's a separate system to pre-designate some days as using everybody's PTO, and having it apply to the whole company. I know some companies do that with Obon for example.

This law (new-ish) that I'm talking about is for companies that don't do that. If an employee isn't using any of their days off at all, and the end of the period is approaching, the company can just make that one employee take off 5 days all at once now. Everybody else would be working like normal on those days.

ITS_A_GUNDAAAM 2 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Gotcha, that makes sense!

[deleted] 1 points · Dec 2025

Would those weekend days normally be days off in most months?

If so, looks like they're just sneakily stealing PTO from employees.

billj04 2 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・東京都

Yes. Basically they gamed it to make sure they're meeting the 5 days off requirement. It was something like they gave us 5 extra days of PTO, then designated those 5 extra days as weekend days we already had off. We still have the same number of real PTO days.

[deleted] 1 points · Dec 2025

Easy to understand, thanks.

MoboMogami 2 points · Dec 2025 · 近畿・兵庫県

Does anyone know the rules for leave for contract positions? I can't find reliable info online.

MagicianSuperb6794 1 points · Dec 2025

It should be a human right in any country that people be allowed "at least 20 days per year not including national holidays"

FightingSideOfMe1 1 points · Dec 2025

This is an attempt to avoid Karoshi, it's rather to protect employees than the company. if I remember well, there is also an amount of overtime you can't exceed.

One hour lunch break is also mandatory if you work 8 hours a day.

Many HR do their best to enforce those.

gajop 0 points · Dec 2025

Unfortunately it's the law. Sucks for foreigners if you want to go back home for a bit longer.

ussv0y4g3r 6 points · Dec 2025

Why sucks for foreigners? Minimum five days doesn’t mean you can’t take more. I always took three weeks off to pass this annual mandatory leave requirement.

gajop 3 points · Dec 2025

Because it's harder to accumulate if you need to use X amount per year.

I joined a new company last January so I only had 10ish days off. And since I had to use 5 for the first year it was harder to accumulate enough to go on a longer vacation back home at the beginning of the second. Normally I'd take close to nothing for the first year and use the combined vacation for two years to go 10+ days back home.

Sucks for foreigners because tickets are very expensive and going home usually takes 2days+ in travel and for jet lag recovery, you normally want a longer vacation for it to make sense.

Consistent-Thing-407 0 points · Dec 2025

People just enter days into the system and work anyways, although it is the "law", it is not really being enforced

trudeau1 0 points · Dec 2025

Your companies rule sounds odd to me, that would make the bookkeeping more complicated and the forms and software I’ve researched always assume you are consuming the oldest available leave.

Alara_Kitan -1 points · Dec 2025 · 関東・神奈川県

I guess it's only a problem if you started after 2019...