Selling Leave Calculator
Selling leave means converting unused vacation or annual leave days into cash, and the gross payout is simply your daily rate multiplied by the number of days you sell. This calculator runs that multiplication instantly, then the guide below shows you how to find your true daily rate, what the tax bite looks like, and why military members face a special set of rules.
This is the gross figure: daily salary times unused days. Taxes and deductions are not included, and negative entries are rejected with an inline error. See the tax section below for what actually reaches your account.
Quick Answer
Selling leave pays your daily rate for every unused day you cash in: $180 per day × 6.5 days = $1,170.00 gross, before tax. The number is gross, not take-home: in the US it is usually withheld as supplemental wages at a flat 22% federal rate, and military members have their own rules, with each day worth monthly basic pay divided by 30 and a 60-day lifetime cap.
Key takeaways
- The formula is one multiplication: daily rate times unused days. Everything else, finding the right daily rate and knowing what is taxable, is where people go wrong.
- Your daily rate is not your monthly salary divided by 30. For a salaried employee it is monthly pay divided by 21.67, the average workdays in a month.
- Leave payouts are taxable income in most countries. The US treats them as supplemental wages, usually with 22% federal tax withheld up front.
- US military members sell leave at 1/30th of monthly basic pay per day, capped at 60 days over an entire career, and housing and food allowances are not included.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the selling leave calculator
- The selling leave formula
- Worked example: $180 a day, 6.5 unused days
- What competing calculators miss
- Military selling leave: the 60-day rule that surprises everyone
- Should you sell the leave or take the time?
- Who actually gets paid for unused leave
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the selling leave calculator
Enter two numbers and click Calculate payout: your daily salary and the unused leave days your policy lets you sell. The result appears as a gross dollar figure, and stays hidden until you calculate.
- Find your daily salary. This is the step most people fudge. Use the conversion table below for your pay type. $180 is pre-filled as the worked example.
- Count only sellable days. Accrued vacation or annual leave that your contract or policy allows you to cash in. Sick leave, maternity leave and public holidays do not count. 6.5 is pre-filled as the worked example.
- Click Calculate payout and read the gross figure. This is what the leave is worth before tax. Your employer’s payroll will withhold tax when it is actually paid.
- Check eligibility before you count on the money. In the US, the FLSA does not require any employer to offer paid leave at all, so cash-out rules come from your contract or state law. In the UK, statutory holiday can only be paid in lieu when your employment ends. Federal employees get a mandatory lump-sum payment for annual leave at separation.
Finding your true daily rate
Most calculators ask for your daily rate and assume you know it. Here is how to derive it from whatever pay type you have:
| If you are paid | Your daily rate is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly salary | Monthly pay ÷ 21.67 (260 workdays per year ÷ 12) | $3,900 ÷ 21.67 = $180/day |
| Annual salary | Annual pay ÷ 260 | $46,800 ÷ 260 = $180/day |
| Hourly wage | Hourly rate × hours in a workday | $22.50 × 8 = $180/day |
| US military basic pay | Monthly basic pay ÷ 30 | $3,000 ÷ 30 = $100/day |
Note the military divisor is different: service members use 30, everyone else uses workdays. Mixing the two up is the most common error in leave-sale math. If your leave balance is recorded in hours rather than days, convert it first with the annual leave hours to days calculator, and if you joined mid-year and are unsure how much you have actually accrued, the prorated PTO calculator works out your partial-year entitlement.
The selling leave formula
Gross payout = daily salary × number of unused leave days. That is the whole formula: it assumes each unused day is paid at your full daily rate, with no bonuses, no deductions and no tax included. The calculator multiplies the two inputs and rounds to two decimals.
Net payout ≈ Gross payout × (1 − your withholding rate), estimated
The second line is not computed by the tool, because withholding depends on your tax situation. In the US, leave payouts are supplemental wages, and employers may withhold a flat 22% for federal income tax under IRS Publication 15 rules. That is withholding, not your final tax: your actual liability depends on your total income and bracket, and the difference settles when you file. State tax and FICA come on top. For a quick sense of how the 22% figure compares with ordinary withholding, the bonus take-home pay calculator uses the same supplemental-wage logic, and the gross-up paycheck calculator shows what an employer would have to pay so that a target amount survives withholding.
Worked example: $180 a day, 6.5 unused days
A salaried employee earns $3,900 a month and has 6.5 unused vacation days the policy allows her to sell. The calculator is pre-filled with exactly these figures.
Run it yourself: with the pre-filled values, clicking Calculate payout returns $1,170.00. The $912.60 net figure is the gross minus the flat 22% federal withholding, before state tax and FICA, which is why the calculator reports gross only and the article shows the tax math separately. Change the inputs to your own daily rate and day count and the tool re-runs the same single multiplication.
What competing calculators miss
Leave payout tools fall into three camps, and each leaves a gap this page closes:
- Single-formula pages (Area Calculators and similar): one line of math, aimed at military basic pay divided by 30. Nothing for the civilian employee who is paid monthly and has never heard of the 21.67 divisor, and no mention of tax.
- Gross-and-net tools (Savvy Calculator, cal67): they add tax-rate and deduction inputs, which is genuinely useful, but they still assume you arrive knowing your daily rate. Their worked examples hand you the daily figure on a plate instead of showing how it is derived, so real users with monthly or hourly pay are stuck at step one.
- Military terminal-leave tools (AgentCalc, calculatorshub): deep on DoD accrual rules and terminal leave dates, but built for service members only. A civilian who lands on one has no idea the 1/30 divisor does not apply to them.
- The gap this page fills: one tool for both audiences with the daily-rate derivation table that the others skip, the military 60-day career cap and basic-pay-only rule spelled out, and an honest gross-only result with the tax treatment explained in prose instead of a tax input that pretends precision the tool cannot verify.
Military selling leave: the 60-day rule that surprises everyone
US service members do not use the civilian formula. Each sold day pays one-thirtieth of monthly basic pay, and federal law caps sales at 60 days across an entire military career. Sell 20 days at the end of one enlistment and only 40 remain for the rest of your service.
To use this calculator as a service member, enter monthly basic pay divided by 30 as the daily salary. The payout covers basic pay only: allowances, special pays and bonuses are left out by statute, which is the main reason taking terminal leave often beats selling for the same days. Days above the cap that cannot be used before separation are simply lost.
Should you sell the leave or take the time?
Selling is not always the smart move. Run the numbers, then weigh them against what the days are worth as rest.
Reasons to sell
- Immediate cash for a move, a gap between jobs, or debt.
- You will forfeit the days anyway (use-it-or-lose-it caps, end of leave year).
- Your workload means the time off would be interrupted or unusable.
Reasons to take the time
- Rest has value the payout cannot replace; burnout costs more than the check.
- For military members, terminal leave keeps full pay and allowances, usually beating the sell-back amount.
- Taking leave keeps accruing benefits and seniority that a lump sum does not buy.
Who actually gets paid for unused leave
Eligibility depends on where you work, not on the calculator. In the US private sector, the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require vacation pay at all: whether you can sell leave, and whether unused days are paid out when you quit, comes from your employer’s policy or your state’s law, according to the US Department of Labor. Several states, including California, treat earned vacation as vested wages that cannot be forfeited. In the UK, the picture is statutory: almost all workers get 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, but payment in lieu of untaken holiday is only allowed when employment ends, per GOV.UK guidance. Federal civilian employees are in the strongest position: agencies must make a lump-sum payment for accrued annual leave at separation or retirement under OPM rules. Sick leave is a different story everywhere: it is almost never sellable, and in the federal system it converts toward retirement credit instead of cash.
Frequently asked questions
Multiply your daily salary by the number of unused leave days you are selling. At $180 a day with 6.5 unused days, the gross payout is $1,170.00. Tax is withheld separately when the payout is processed, so the calculator result is the before-tax figure.
Divide your monthly gross salary by 21.67, the average number of workdays in a month (260 workdays a year divided by 12). A $3,900 monthly salary gives a $180 daily rate. Hourly workers multiply their hourly rate by the hours in a workday, and military members divide monthly basic pay by 30.
Yes, in most cases. In the US, leave payouts are supplemental wages, and employers commonly withhold a flat 22% for federal income tax, plus state tax and FICA. That 22% is withholding, not your final tax rate: your actual liability depends on your total annual income and is settled when you file.
It depends on your policy and your country. Many US employers allow annual cash-outs or buy-backs of accrued vacation if the handbook permits it. In the UK, statutory holiday cannot be paid in lieu during employment, only when you leave. US military members can generally only sell leave at separation or reenlistment.
A maximum of 60 days across an entire military career, under 37 U.S.C. 501, minus any days already sold since 1976. Each day pays one-thirtieth of monthly basic pay, with no housing or subsistence allowances included. Days above the cap that are not used before separation are forfeited.
Not automatically. US federal law does not require vacation pay at all, so the answer comes from your employer’s policy or state law; several states treat earned vacation as wages that must be paid out. In the UK, accrued statutory holiday must be paid in the final pay when employment ends. Federal civilian employees receive a mandatory lump-sum payment for annual leave at separation.
Generally no. Only accrued vacation or annual leave is sellable, and only where your policy or the law allows it. Sick leave, maternity or parental leave, and public holidays sit outside leave-sale rules in almost every system.
Taking terminal leave usually wins financially: you keep receiving full pay plus housing and food allowances while you are effectively already out. Selling pays basic pay only, at 1/30th per day, and is taxed as supplemental wages. Selling makes sense mainly when you cannot use the days before separation or want the lump sum for an immediate expense.
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References
- Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives. 37 U.S.C. §501, Payments for unused accrued leave: the 60-day career cap and basic-pay basis for military leave sell-back. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Military.com. Should You Sell Back Leave or Take Terminal Leave When You Get Out?: basic-pay-only rule, withholding, and the sell-versus-terminal trade-off. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- GOV.UK. Holiday entitlement: 5.6 weeks statutory annual leave for UK workers. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- nibusinessinfo.co.uk. Calculate holiday entitlement and holiday pay: payment in lieu of untaken statutory holiday only on termination. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Lump-Sum Payments for Annual Leave: mandatory lump-sum payment for federal employees at separation. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Annual Leave (General Information): accrual rates and the lump-sum rule. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor. Vacations: the FLSA does not require vacation pay; benefits are a matter of agreement. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Questions and Answers About the Fair Labor Standards Act: vacation, sick and holiday pay are agreement-based. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Fact Sheet #56A: Overview of the Regular Rate of Pay: payments for unused leave are excludable from the regular rate. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- LegalClarity. Is Vacation Pay Taxed? How Withholding Works: vacation payouts as supplemental wages with flat 22% federal withholding under IRS Publication 15. Accessed October 23, 2026.