If you employ staff in Chile, annual leave is governed by the Código del Trabajo — not by whatever vacation policy your headquarters runs in the US, the UK, or the rest of LATAM. The Chilean rules are short, specific, and unforgiving: a fixed 15 working days after one year of service, a long-service bonus that kicks in at the ten-year mark, and a strict obligation to pay out anything untaken when employment ends.

This guide sets out what the Labour Code actually requires in 2026: the day count, who qualifies, the employer obligations the Dirección del Trabajo enforces, and the pitfalls that quietly create back-pay exposure for international employers. Facts come from articles 66 to 76 of the Código del Trabajo and the 2008 reform under Law 20.281.

Key Takeaways

Employees in Chile are entitled to 15 working days (three weeks) of paid annual leave — known as feriado legal — after completing one year of service with the same employer.
After 10 years of service with the same employer, the entitlement increases by one additional day for every three further years of service.
Employees must be paid their normal remuneration during annual leave, and untaken leave must be paid out on termination.
Annual leave should be taken within the calendar year in which it accrues, although unused days can be carried forward by mutual agreement.
Annual leave applies to all employees under the Labour Code once they cross the one-year threshold.

The Statutory Entitlement: 15 Working Days After One Year

The core rule sits in articles 66 to 76 of the Código del Trabajo: every employee with one year of service with the same employer is entitled to 15 working days (three weeks) of paid annual leave per year. In Chilean practice this is called the feriado legal or feriado anual, and it is the floor — collective agreements and employer policies can sit above it but never below.

The figure is expressed in working days, not calendar days, which means weekends and statutory public holidays are not counted against the 15-day balance. Three weeks of actual time off the job is what the worker is entitled to.

Three things to internalise about the Chilean baseline:

Fifteen working days, not ten or twenty. Chile sits in the middle of the LATAM range — more generous than countries with a 10-day floor, less generous than jurisdictions like Brazil’s 30 calendar days.
The clock starts at one year. Workers below 12 months of continuous service do not yet have a vested right to take feriado legal. They do, however, have a proportional payout right when the contract ends (covered below).
The day count is per year of service, not per calendar year. Anniversary-based accrual is the right mental model.

How the Long-Service Bonus Works

Chile rewards tenure with the same employer through a specific schedule in the Labour Code. After 10 years of service with the same employer, the worker earns one additional day of leave for every three years of further service. So an employee at the same company for 13 years has 16 working days; at 16 years, 17 days; at 19 years, 18 days, and so on.

The legal basis is article 68 of the Código del Trabajo as amended by Law 20.281 (2008), which clarified the rules around remuneration and the structure of long-service leave. The Labour Code also imposes a maximum on the long-service component, so check the current ceiling with the Dirección del Trabajo if you have employees nearing two decades of tenure.

For HR systems, the practical implication is that you cannot simply hard-code “15 days” for every Chilean employee. Anyone past the ten-year mark has a tenure-driven uplift that needs to be computed against their start date, not the calendar.

Who Is Eligible

Eligibility is broad. All employees under the Código del Trabajo qualify for feriado legal once they complete one year of continuous service with the same employer. The form of contract does not change this:

Indefinite contracts (contrato indefinido)
Fixed-term contracts (contrato a plazo fijo) that run beyond one year
Project- and task-based contracts (contrato por obra o faena)
Part-time contracts under the Labour Code

Independent service providers under a contrato de honorarios sit outside the Labour Code and do not earn feriado legal. As elsewhere in LATAM, Chilean labour authorities and courts are willing to reclassify a misdescribed honorarios relationship into employment, with full back-pay exposure for vacation, severance, and social contributions. Get the classification right before you rely on it.

Workers who have not yet reached 12 months of service do not have a right to take annual leave, but on termination they are owed a proportional payout for the period they did work — see the employer obligations below.

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Employer Obligations Under the Labour Code

The Dirección del Trabajo (DT) is the regulator that audits and enforces feriado legal. The Labour Code puts four positive duties on the employer.

1. Grant 15 Working Days of Paid Annual Leave Per Year

Once the employee crosses the one-year mark, you must allow them to take the full 15 working days. A clause that purports to give less is unenforceable; the worker keeps the statutory floor regardless of what they signed.

2. Pay Normal Remuneration During Leave

Annual leave is paid leave at the employee’s normal remuneration. The 2008 Law 20.281 reform was specifically aimed at making sure the figure used during feriado legal reflects the worker’s actual earnings, including fixed components, rather than a stripped-down base salary. If your payroll splits a worker’s pay into many small fixed allowances, those should still flow through to vacation pay.

3. Allow the Leave to Be Taken Within the Year

Annual leave is meant to be taken, not stockpiled. The Labour Code expects employers to schedule the feriado within the year in which it accrues. Pure carry-forward is not the default — although unused leave can be carried forward by mutual agreement between employer and employee, that has to be a deliberate decision, not a passive accumulation.

This matters operationally. If you let a worker bank three or four years of unused leave with no written agreement, you are running both a compliance risk and a balance-sheet risk: the worker can request the time, and on termination the lot becomes payable in cash.

4. Pay Out Unused Leave on Termination

When employment ends — whether by resignation, dismissal, or mutual termination — any untaken annual leave must be paid out as part of the worker’s finiquito. This includes:

Any full-year balances of feriado legal that were never taken.
A proportional payout for any partial year of service since the worker’s last anniversary, even if they have not yet reached the 12-month mark to take leave.
The long-service bonus days for employees past the ten-year threshold.

Not paying this out is the single most common Chilean feriado breach picked up at termination, and it is exactly the issue that drives DT complaints and demandas laborales.

Common Pitfalls for International Employers

International employers running Chilean payroll on a foreign HR system tend to trip over the same handful of issues. Avoid these:

Failing to apply the long-service bonus. After 10 years of service, the entitlement increases by one day for every three further years. A flat “15 days for everyone” policy is non-compliant for tenured employees.
Forgetting to pay out unused leave on termination. The finiquito must include any vacation balance and the proportional accrual since the last anniversary. Skipping it generates direct DT exposure.
Treating the 15 days as calendar days. They are working days. Weekends and statutory public holidays do not consume the balance.
Using a calendar leave year. Feriado legal accrues against the anniversary of the worker’s start date, not against 1 January. Calendar-year HR systems imported from elsewhere will misstate balances.
Allowing balances to drift forever without written agreement. Carry-forward exists, but it requires mutual agreement — not silence. Document it.
Reclassifying employees as honorarios contractors to avoid leave costs. Chilean labour authorities reclassify misdescribed contractors into employees with full back-pay exposure, including feriado legal.

For wider international comparison, our guide to annual leave entitlement in Mexico covers the post-2023 Vacaciones Dignas schedule and the 25% prima vacacional, our annual leave entitlement in Argentina post sets out the Ley de Contrato de Trabajo sliding scale, and our annual leave entitlement in Brazil guide explains the 30 calendar-day férias model that frames South American expectations on the other side.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many days of annual leave per year in Chile?

15 working days (three weeks) of paid annual leave per year, after completing one year of service with the same employer. The figure is in working days, so weekends and statutory public holidays are not counted against the balance.

Do Chilean employees get more leave with seniority?

Yes. After 10 years of service with the same employer, the entitlement increases by one additional day of leave for every three further years of service, under article 68 of the Código del Trabajo as amended by Law 20.281.

Can annual leave be carried forward in Chile?

Unused annual leave can be carried forward by mutual agreement between employer and employee. The default expectation is that feriado legal is taken within the year in which it accrues — passive, undocumented carry-forward is not how the Labour Code is meant to work.

What happens to unused annual leave on termination?

Untaken annual leave must be paid out on termination, regardless of who ended the employment relationship. The payout includes any full-year balances and a proportional amount for the part-year of service since the worker’s most recent anniversary.

Are part-time employees entitled to annual leave in Chile?

Yes. All employees under the Código del Trabajo qualify for feriado legal once they complete one year of continuous service. The 15-working-day entitlement is expressed in days, not pro-rated hours.

What law governs annual leave in Chile?

The Código del Trabajo (Labour Code), articles 66 to 76, with the 2008 reform under Law 20.281 clarifying remuneration during leave and the structure of the long-service bonus.

How Leave Balance Helps With Chilean Compliance

Tracking anniversary-based feriado legal accruals, applying the long-service bonus past ten years, paying normal remuneration during leave, and clearing balances on termination is exactly the kind of work that Chilean SMEs and international employers want off their plate.

Leave Balance handles it for you:

Country-specific accrual rules for Chile, applying the 15-working-day floor from year one.
Anniversary-based leave years so balances do not drift into a calendar-year mismatch.
Long-service uplift logic that adds the additional days at the ten-year tenure threshold.
Termination payout reporting so untaken feriado legal and pro-rata accrual are visible at exit.
Multi-country support for teams that span Chile, the rest of LATAM, the US, and Europe — all on one flat $10/month plan with unlimited employees.