Annual leave in Peru: entitlement, the récord vacacional and scheduling

Annual leave looks like the simplest item on a Peruvian payroll. In practice, it is one of the areas where multinational groups most often drift out of compliance, not because anyone refuses to grant vacation, but because the global leave policy, the parent company’s HR system and Peruvian law count leave in different ways. A policy written in working days, an accrual cap copied from another country, or an “unlimited time off” culture can leave a Peruvian subsidiary with unrecorded entitlements that turn into a real cost later.

This article explains the Peruvian rules as a finance or HR leader would need them: what the entitlement is, the attendance test that conditions it, who decides the dates, and where the traps are for companies managing Peru from abroad. It is part of our guide to mandatory employee benefits in Peru.

The entitlement: 30 calendar days per year of service

Under Peru’s general private-sector regime, an employee earns 30 calendar days of paid annual leave for each full year of service. The Constitution recognizes the right to annual paid rest, and Legislative Decree 713 and its regulations (Supreme Decree 012-92-TR) develop it.

Three features matter for employers used to other systems:

• Calendar days, not working days. Weekends and rest days falling within a leave block are part of the 30 days. The figure is not directly comparable to a “25 working days” policy elsewhere, and the conversion is not mechanical once leave is split into shorter periods.
• A yearly entitlement, not a monthly accrual. The right vests on completing each year of service (plus the attendance test below). Proportional amounts appear mainly on termination, as vacaciones truncas (pro-rated leave pay for an incomplete year).
• Paid in advance. Vacation pay is the remuneration the employee would have regularly received had they kept working, and the law requires it to be paid before the leave begins.

Who is outside the general rule

The statutory vacation regime requires an ordinary working day of at least four hours. Part-time employees working, on average, under four hours a day fall outside it. Companies registered under the special micro-enterprise regime operate with a reduced entitlement of 15 calendar days. Because the rules for micro and small enterprises are undergoing legislative reform, any group relying on that regime should confirm its current status before budgeting.

The récord vacacional: the attendance test

A year of service alone is not enough. The employee must also meet the récord vacacional, a minimum number of days effectively worked during that year. Legislative Decree 713 (Article 10) sets it according to the work pattern:

The law also lists situations that count as days worked for this purpose, even though the employee was not at work. Among them are days on which the employee worked an ordinary shift of at least four hours, pre- and post-natal leave, sick leave or work-accident leave of up to 60 days in the year, and union leave. Unjustified absences, by contrast, reduce the count.

For most full-time employees with normal attendance, the test is met without difficulty. It becomes relevant with long unpaid leaves, suspensions or extended absences beyond the 60-day threshold. In those cases, HR should verify the count before denying or granting leave, because an error in either direction creates either an unpaid entitlement or an unjustified cost.

Who sets the dates

Leave dates are fixed by agreement between employer and employee, taking into account the needs of the workplace and of the employee. If there is no agreement, the employer decides (Legislative Decree 713, Article 14).

That is more flexibility than many foreign managers expect, but it comes with a firm outer limit. If the employee does not take the leave within the year following the year in which it was earned, the company must pay an additional indemnity equal to one month’s remuneration, on top of paying for the work performed and the rest owed. The mechanics and the cost of this rule are covered in our article on accrued unused leave and the triple-pay rule.

In practice, the employer’s power to decide the dates is also the employer’s responsibility. If leave is not scheduled because operations “never have a good moment,” the legal consequence falls on the company, not on the employee.

Flexibility within the entitlement

Peruvian law allows several adjustments, each subject to formal conditions:

• Splitting the 30 days into shorter periods, at the employee’s written request, following a structure of a main block plus shorter periods.
• Advancing leave days before the entitlement vests, by written agreement.
• Accumulating up to two consecutive leave periods, by written agreement, provided at least seven calendar days are taken after each year of continuous service.
• Reducing the leave from 30 to 15 days in exchange for 15 days’ pay, by written agreement and only against the part of the leave that can be split.

Each option has specific rules, explained in our article on splitting and advancing annual leave in Peru. The common thread is paperwork: without the written request or agreement, the flexibility is hard to defend.

Where global policies collide with Peruvian rules

Foreign-owned subsidiaries rarely breach the leave rules deliberately. The friction usually comes from imported tools and habits.

Working-day policies. A group policy that grants a number of working days per year must be reconciled with 30 calendar days. The safest approach is to track Peruvian employees on a Peruvian leave calendar, and to treat any extra group days as a separate, contractual benefit.

Accrual caps and forfeiture. Some countries allow “use it or lose it” rules. In Peru, statutory leave does not simply lapse: if it is not taken on time, it becomes a larger payment obligation. A forfeiture clause copied from a global handbook does not remove that liability.

Unlimited or flexible time off. A culture of informal days off does not prove that the statutory leave was granted. If a labor inspection or a claim arises, the company must show when the 30 days were taken and that vacation pay was paid.

HRIS configuration. Many parent-company systems assume monthly accrual, working days and a single global anniversary date. A Peruvian record needs hire-date anniversaries, calendar-day counting, the attendance test and the one-year deadline for taking leave. If the system cannot hold those fields, a local register is needed alongside it.

Checklist for a Peruvian leave process

• Record each employee’s hire date and the date on which each annual entitlement vests.
• Track the récord vacacional for employees with long absences, unpaid leave or suspensions.
• Keep a documented leave schedule, agreed with employees where possible, and approved by the employer where agreement fails.
• Pay vacation pay before the leave starts and reflect it on the payslip.
• Keep written requests or agreements for any split, advanced, accumulated or reduced leave.
• Monitor, per employee, the deadline by which each period must be taken.
• Reconcile the global HRIS balance with the Peruvian statutory balance at least quarterly.
• Include leave deadlines in the company’s annual employment compliance calendar.

Common mistakes

• Treating the global PTO balance as the legal record. The Peruvian entitlement must be traceable on its own terms.
• Counting leave in working days. This distorts balances, especially when leave is split.
• Letting managers postpone leave indefinitely. Operational convenience does not suspend the one-year deadline.
• Paying vacation pay with the regular monthly payroll after the leave has started, instead of before it begins.
• Ignoring pro-rated leave on exit. Unused and pro-rated leave must be settled in the final settlement on termination.

Consequences of getting it wrong

The most direct exposure is financial: leave not taken within the following year generates an additional indemnity equal to one month’s pay per period affected. Beyond that, incomplete leave records are a common finding in labor inspections by SUNAFIL, Peru’s national labor inspection authority, and non-compliance with statutory benefits may expose the company to administrative fines calculated on the number of employees affected. Leave balances also surface in employee claims after termination and in due diligence when a Peruvian entity is sold.

Preventive recommendations

As a preventive criterion, we recommend that foreign-owned companies:

1. Adopt a short Peruvian leave annex to the global policy, stating that local statutory rules prevail and describing how extra group days are treated.
2. Assign one person in Peru to own the leave register and the deadlines, with a monthly report to finance.
3. Require written requests for any split or advanced leave, using a standard form.
4. Budget leave as a real cost: the salary of the absent employee is paid, and coverage for critical roles may be needed.

For companies that want an independent review of leave balances, policy wording and system configuration, our annual leave advisory service covers the diagnosis and the corrective plan.

Key takeaways

Peruvian annual leave is generous by international standards, conditioned by a clear attendance test, and enforced through a cost that rises if leave is not taken on time. The legal rules are not complex; the difficulty lies in running them through global tools that were not built for them. A local register, a calendar of deadlines and written agreements for every exception are usually enough to keep the entitlement under control.