One of the most disputed issues in Turkish employment relations is how an employee’s annual paid leave entitlement is calculated, and whether a claim that leave was never granted can justify the employee terminating the employment contract for just cause. In practice, both employees and employers often assume that the sentence “I was never allowed to take my leave” is, by itself, enough to justify termination. The settled case law of the Turkish Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), however, ties this question to much more concrete criteria.
Legal Basis of Annual Paid Leave
Articles 53 and following of Turkish Labour Law No. 4857 grant employees who have completed at least one year of service an annual paid leave entitlement that increases with seniority: 14 days for employees with one to five years of service, 20 days for those with five to fifteen years, and 26 days for those with fifteen years or more. When the employment contract ends for any reason, the employee (or their heirs) is entitled to be paid, at the final wage rate, for any accrued leave that was never used.
Although this framework looks straightforward on paper, disputes frequently arise once an employee has used leave in different amounts across different years, making it necessary to determine exactly how much leave was earned, how much was used, and what balance remains.
How Used Leave Is Offset Against Entitlement
The Court of Cassation has repeatedly held that the total number of leave days an employee earned over the entire period of employment must be compared, as a whole, against the total number of days actually used — and that calculating leave year by year in isolation can produce erroneous results. In its decision no. 2019/108 E., 2019/1688 K., the 22nd Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation held that the correct approach is to determine the outstanding leave receivable “by offsetting the annual leave days the claimant is understood to have used, within the file, against the total leave the claimant could have used over the length of service” — and that a ruling reached without observing this principle constitutes grounds for reversal.
In a similar vein, the same Chamber’s decision no. 2017/7418 E., 2017/11438 K. emphasized that all signed annual leave documents in the file must be taken into account, and that the outstanding leave receivable must be calculated by deducting the total leave days the employee is shown to have used from the total leave days earned over the length of service. Both decisions point to a common error seen in practice: a report or a court disregarding periods in which the employee used more leave than accrued in a given year, and instead focusing only on the years in which no leave was used. The correct method is to net the total number of leave days actually used — evidenced by the employee’s signed leave request forms — against the total number of days earned throughout the entire employment relationship.
This principle matters most where an employee used more than the accrued entitlement in some years, at their own request, and less in others. Basing the calculation only on the final year, or only on the years in which no leave was taken, can produce a receivable figure that does not reflect the real balance — whether in the employee’s favor or against them.
Failure to Grant Annual Leave Is Not Automatically Just Cause for Termination
Another issue frequently seen in practice is an employee terminating their own employment contract on the grounds that “my annual leave was never granted,” and then claiming severance pay on that basis. According to the Court of Cassation, however, such a termination is not automatically deemed justified.
In its recent decision no. 2025/9336 E., 2026/1115 K., the 9th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation held that for a failure to grant annual paid leave to constitute just cause for termination, the leave must have gone unused for a long period, and must have been withheld despite the employee’s request, without a valid reason. In that case, since most of the leave the employee had earned had in fact already been granted, and there was no written leave request form covering the outstanding balance, the employee’s resignation-type termination could not be treated as justified, and no entitlement to severance pay arose.
Similarly, in decision no. 2025/6863 E., 2025/8072 K., the 9th Civil Chamber held that where the case file contains no evidence that the employee ever requested annual leave and that the employer refused it, the employee cannot be said to have terminated the employment contract for just cause.
The common conclusion drawn from these decisions is that a leave-based termination for just cause requires three elements to be present together:
- The employee must have made a request — in writing, or at least provably — to use annual leave;
- The employer must have refused or failed to grant that request without valid justification; and
- This must be an ongoing state of affairs, meaning the leave must have gone unused for a substantial period.
In the absence of all three elements together, the bare statement “my leave was never granted” does not, by itself, give the employee a right to terminate for just cause or to claim severance pay on that basis.
Burden of Proof and the Importance of Leave Request Forms
In practice, the most critical point for both employers and employees is that the use of annual leave must be provable through written documentation. On the employer’s side, properly maintained leave request and approval forms and signed leave schedules are the most important evidence both for showing that leave was granted and for correctly calculating any outstanding balance. On the employee’s side, the absence of any written record showing that leave was requested and refused substantially weakens a claim of termination for just cause.
For this reason, employers are well advised to document annual leave processes through written forms bearing the employee’s signature, while employees should, where possible, submit leave requests in writing (through a petition, e-mail, or an internal system) and keep a record if such a request is refused.
Conclusion
Annual paid leave is a right guaranteed under Turkish Labour Law as part of the employee’s entitlement to rest, but neither the mere failure to use it nor a bare allegation that it was never granted automatically produces a receivable or automatically justifies termination for just cause. The Court of Cassation’s settled case law establishes that the leave receivable must be calculated by netting the total days earned against the total days used over the entire length of service, and that a termination for just cause based on unused leave can only be accepted where leave was withheld, despite a written request, in an unjustified and ongoing manner. Within this framework, both employees and employers who support their annual leave practices with written documentation will be in a far stronger position should a dispute arise.
This article is intended for general informational purposes. For legal advice specific to your situation, please consult a qualified lawyer.
