Are self-employed people entitled to paid holidays? What the status says and how to fund your time off

Why don't the self-employed have paid holidays?

Paid holidays come under the annual holiday scheme, which is reserved for employees. For a manual worker, the National Annual Holiday Office (ONVA/RJV) or a holiday fund pays the holiday pay; for a white-collar employee, the employer pays it. The social status of the self-employed, managed by the NISSE (National Institute for the Social Security of the Self-employed, INASTI/RSVZ), has no such branch: no fund pays for your weeks of rest.

What the status does cover lies elsewhere: healthcare, incapacity for work benefits, maternity, pension, the bridging right, bereavement allowance, informal carer and birth leave. You pay contributions to your social insurance fund for these risks, not for holidays. Social protection for the self-employed covers each of them in detail.

In practice, nobody imposes or refuses time off. You decide how long and when, subject to your commitments to your clients. The trade-off is simple: a day not invoiced is a day without income.

What do you keep paying while on holiday?

Social security contributions do not stop when your activity does. Every quarter, your fund charges provisional contributions calculated on your income from three years earlier, then adjusts them to your final income. A month's holiday therefore does not reduce the quarter's bill; it only weighs, later on, on the adjusted annual income.

Other fixed costs keep running too: business rent, leasing, subscriptions, insurance, advance tax payments if you make them. A quiet summer for invoicing can therefore coincide with a heavy quarter for outgoings. The contributions simulator gives you the quarterly amount to budget for.

Illness, on the other hand, remains covered by your health insurance fund (mutuality): a recognised incapacity of at least 8 days is compensated from the first day. Time off you choose to take, however, gives no entitlement to any benefit, and an income protection insurance policy only pays out for incapacity, never for holidays.

How much should you set aside to fund your time off?

Count the weeks in the year without invoicing, then divide by the weeks invoiced. With 6 weeks off (holidays, public holidays, long weekends), you invoice 46 weeks: each one also has to fund a share of the empty weeks, which means setting aside about 13% of its net income.

Looked at over the year, about 11.5% of annual income goes towards living during the weeks without invoicing. This figure does not include fixed costs, which keep running: add them to the provision if your business really stops. The classic mistake is to set your rate on the basis of 52 working weeks.

A useful benchmark: a manual worker's gross holiday pay represents 15.38% of their previous year's gross pay, grossed up to 108%. Employees do not fund this holiday pay out of their monthly salary; you do. So build your weeks of rest into your day or hourly rate, rather than taking them out of your cash at the last minute.

• A separate account topped up with every invoice paid, using the percentage calculated above.
• Quiet weeks planned into your clients' calendars and announced early.
• A rate calculated on the weeks you can actually invoice, not on the whole year.

And the director of an SRL/BV: do they get holiday pay?

No. For their mandate, the manager or director of an SRL/BV (private limited company) is self-employed for social security purposes, not an employee of their company: they have neither holiday pay nor statutory holiday days. Their company may continue to pay the agreed monthly remuneration during their time off, but that is a management choice, not an entitlement.

This smoothing has a concrete advantage: remuneration does not follow the rhythm of invoices, which makes holidays easier to absorb. The cost is still borne by the company's profits. To weigh remuneration against other forms of income, see taking money out of your SRL/BV and the entry on the company director.

Further reading

The pages on this site that explore each of the points covered here in more depth.

• Calculating your day rate as a self-employed personBuilding holidays, contributions and expenses into a day rate, with a worked example.
• Social and private protection for the self-employedWhat the NISSE, the health insurance fund and private insurance cover.
• Self-employed as a main occupationThe status, its contributions and its rights at a glance.
• Social security contributions simulatorThe quarterly amount to budget for, holidays included.
• Incapacity for work when self-employedWhat the health insurance fund pays when illness, not time off, stops your work.
• Income protection insuranceTopping up the NIHDI flat rate in the event of prolonged incapacity.

Frequently asked questions