Calculators

Sick leave entitlement and balance under the Holidays Act

Work out a sick leave entitlement and what is left of it.

Three rules, and two of them are caps that people forget until they collide.

  • Entitlement starts after SIX MONTHS of continuous employment, then ten days on each anniversary. Nothing accrues day by day before that, so an employee at five months has no statutory entitlement at all.
  • Carry-over is capped at TEN days. An employee who took none last year carries ten, not the full ten they were owed plus anything older.
  • The total is capped at TWENTY days. Ten current plus ten carried is the statutory maximum, and a contractual entitlement above ten does not lift that cap on the statutory part.

capped_by_carry_over_limit and capped_by_total_limit say which cap, if either, bound the answer, because "why is my balance not what I counted" is almost always one of those two.

Give daily_pay to value the balance. Note that relevant daily pay is what the employee would have earned on the day taken, which is not necessarily salary divided by 260.

post/v1/sick-leave

Request

  • Base URL: https://api.calculate.co.nz
  • URL: https://api.calculate.co.nz/v1/sick-leave
  • Auth: API key in header X-API-Key

Request body

start_datestring required

Employment start date, ISO format YYYY-MM-DD.

as_atstring nullable

Date to calculate at, ISO format. Defaults to today.

days_takennumber

Days taken in the current entitlement year.

carry_over_daysnumber

Unused days from last year. No more than ten can carry.

extra_contractual_daysinteger

Days above the statutory ten that the employment agreement provides.

daily_paynumber nullable

Relevant daily pay, used to value the balance. Optional.

Example request

{
  "as_at": "2026-09-01",
  "carry_over_days": 12,
  "daily_pay": 280,
  "days_taken": 4,
  "extra_contractual_days": 0,
  "start_date": "2025-03-01"
}

Response

Entitlement, carry-over after the cap, and the days remaining.

disclaimerstring required

Scope and limits of this calculation.

Example response

{
  "disclaimer": "The statutory minimum under the Holidays Act 2003. An employment agreement may be more generous, and relevant daily pay is what would have been earned on the day taken. Not legal advice.",
  "result": {
    "annual_entitlement_days": 10,
    "balance_days": 16,
    "balance_value": 4480,
    "capped_by_carry_over_limit": true,
    "capped_by_total_limit": false,
    "carry_over_applied_days": 10,
    "carry_over_requested_days": 12,
    "days_taken": 4,
    "entitled": true,
    "governing_law": "Holidays Act 2003 applies until 6 August 2028",
    "inputs": {
      "as_at": "2026-09-01",
      "carry_over_days": 12,
      "daily_pay": 280,
      "days_taken": 4,
      "extra_contractual_days": 0,
      "start_date": "2025-03-01"
    },
    "months_employed": 18,
    "total_available_days": 20
  }
}

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 1 revision of this API.