Accrual and granting periods, the constitutional one-third, the cash allowance, collective vacations, splitting, and the double-payment penalty.
Accrual period and granting period
Vacation rights come from the accrual period: every 12 months of contract, the employee earns 30 days of rest (with up to 5 unjustified absences in the period; beyond that, the entitled days decrease in brackets set by the CLT).
Once the accrual period closes, the granting period opens: the employer has another 12 months to grant the vacation, on whatever date best suits the business — as long as the employee is notified at least 30 days in advance.
The constitutional one-third and the payment deadline
The Constitution guarantees that vacation pay carries one third more than the normal salary. On a R$ 3,000 salary, 30 days of vacation pay R$ 4,000 — and averages of habitual overtime and premiums enter the base.
Payment must be made up to 2 days before the rest begins. Paying later than that, even when the vacation itself is granted on time, already triggers the right to double payment under the TST’s settled case law.
Cash allowance: selling 1/3 of the vacation
The employee may convert up to one third of the vacation into cash — the abono pecuniário. Someone with 30 days can sell up to 10, resting 20 and receiving the 10 sold days in cash, also increased by the one-third.
The choice belongs to the employee, not the employer, and must be requested up to 15 days before the accrual period ends. The allowance is indemnity-natured: it carries no INSS or IRRF, which makes it financially attractive for the team.
Splitting into up to 3 periods
Since the 2017 labor reform, vacation can be split into up to three periods, provided the employee agrees. One of the periods cannot be shorter than 14 consecutive days, and the others must each have at least 5 consecutive days.
Another rule that often goes unnoticed: vacation cannot start within the 2 days preceding a holiday or the weekly paid rest day. Scheduling vacation to start on a Friday, for example, usually violates this rule.
Collective vacations
The company may grant collective vacations to all employees or to specific departments, in up to 2 annual periods, none shorter than 10 consecutive days. The union and the labor authority must be notified 15 days in advance.
Employees with less than 12 months of service take proportional vacation during the collective period and start a new accrual period right after — a detail that demands attention in individual tracking.
The penalty that hurts most: double payment
If vacation is not granted within the granting period, the employer pays the compensation double, including the one-third. On a R$ 3,000 salary, overdue, ungranted vacation costs R$ 8,000 instead of R$ 4,000.
The risk grows silently: without active tracking of due dates, HR only discovers the problem after the deadline has blown. In Avos, each employee’s accrual and granting periods are tracked automatically, with alerts before expiry and the vacation calculation — one-third, averages and allowance — integrated into the period’s payroll.