Vacation Accrual Calculator

About this calculator

Under an accrual-based PTO policy, employees do not receive their full annual vacation allowance all at once — instead, they earn a fraction of it with each pay period worked. The accrual rate per period is simply the annual vacation days divided by the number of pay periods in a year, and the amount banked so far is that rate multiplied by the number of periods actually worked.

This is the standard method payroll and HR systems use to track vacation balances throughout the year, since it lets a new hire start earning time off immediately even though they have not been employed a full year yet. This calculator takes the annual vacation allowance, pay periods per year, and periods worked to show both the per-period accrual rate and the total accrued so far.