Cengolio · Tools · Holiday entitlement
Twenty-eight days sounds like more than twenty.
It usually is not. The English 28 already contains the bank holidays; the German 20 has every public holiday stacked on top, and how many that is depends on the Land. Enter the working week and the Land: both statutory minima appear side by side, counted to the same finish line.
These are the statutory minima, not anyone’s contract. German contracts commonly grant 25 to 30 days, English ones 25 plus bank holidays; the floor is what the comparison shows. Part-time work scales both sides pro rata.
Two traps sit in the counting. § 3 BUrlG says 24 days, but counts Werktage, Monday to Saturday; on a five-day week that is the familiar 20, and Werktag is not Arbeitstag. And a bank holiday that falls on an English weekend comes back as a substitute Monday, while a German public holiday on a Saturday is simply gone. In Bavaria the thirteenth holiday holds only in predominantly Catholic municipalities.