Employee leave in the Philippines is a mix of statutory benefits and company-granted time off. Treating every absence as the same “leave” bucket is how balances, DTR, and payroll drift apart. TimeBoxHR is designed to support separate leave types, entitlement policies, credit balances, and the path from an approved request into DTR and payroll so those distinctions can be kept in one system of record.
Last reviewed: September 2026.
Government rules and contribution schedules may change. This article is provided for general information and should be verified against the latest official government issuance before payroll processing.
This pillar article maps the leave types Philippine HR and payroll teams see most often, states which ones come from statute, and points to the detailed guides in this cluster. It is not a substitute for the current DOLE Handbook on Workers’ Statutory Monetary Benefits or for advice on a disputed case.
Statutory leave and company leave are not the same thing
Start every leave policy conversation with one question: is this benefit fixed by law, or did the company (or a CBA) create it?
Statutory leave is granted by the Labor Code or by a Republic Act. Coverage, duration, and many conversion rules are not optional for employees who qualify. Company leave is a policy choice. Employers may grant more days, earlier vesting, or extra types. They should not assume that a generous handbook automatically copies SIL commutation, maternity salary-differential rules, or VAWC documentation requirements onto every leave type.
The most common mix-up is vacation leave and sick leave. Many Philippine employers grant both. That practice is widespread and useful. It is still usually a company benefit. Service Incentive Leave is the Labor Code benefit of five paid days after at least one year of service for covered employees. SIL may be used for vacation, sickness, or other leave purposes. It is not a second, hidden 15-day VL/SL package that the law gives everyone.
Leave types at a glance
Use this table as a map, then read the linked article before you set days, pay, or conversion in software.
| Leave type | Typical source | Usual duration | Unused days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service Incentive Leave | Labor Code Article 95 | 5 paid days after one year, if covered | Generally commutable |
| Vacation leave | Company policy or CBA | Set by policy (often monthly accrual) | Policy or CBA |
| Sick leave | Company policy or CBA | Set by policy | Policy or CBA |
| Maternity leave | RA 11210 | 105 paid days for live birth; 60 for miscarriage or emergency termination | Not a year-end VL-style conversion |
| Paternity leave | RA 8187 | 7 paid days, first four deliveries of the legitimate spouse | Generally not convertible |
| Solo-parent parental leave | RA 11861 | 7 working days per year if qualified | Generally not convertible unless agreed |
| VAWC leave | RA 9262 | Up to 10 paid days | Not convertible; not cumulative |
| Special leave for women | RA 9710 | Up to two months (60 days) with full pay after qualifying surgery | Generally not convertible unless a CBA says so |
Durations above are the well-established statutory figures for qualified employees. Confirm current handbook text, IRR, and any more generous CBA before you lock a payroll rule.
Detailed guides:
- Service Incentive Leave in the Philippines
- Vacation leave in the Philippines
- Sick leave in the Philippines
- Maternity leave in the Philippines
- Paternity leave in the Philippines
- Solo-parent leave in the Philippines
- VAWC leave in the Philippines
- Special leave for women in the Philippines
- How to calculate leave credits
- How to compute leave pay
Service Incentive Leave: the statutory five days
SIL applies to employees who have rendered at least one year of service, with important exceptions. The current DOLE handbook lists, among others, government employees, persons in the personal service of another, certain managerial employees and managerial staff, field personnel and employees whose time and performance are unsupervised, those already enjoying the benefit, those already enjoying at least five days of paid vacation leave, and employees in establishments regularly employing fewer than ten workers.
Do not treat a job title or a pay scheme as an automatic exception. Managerial and field classifications depend on actual duties and current rules. Arrangements paid by task, contract, or commission can interact with those classifications. Confirm the current handbook and implementing rules before you exclude anyone.
Unused SIL is generally commutable to cash if unused at year-end for covered employees. Upon resignation or separation, unused SIL is also generally commutable. Company VL that already meets the five-day threshold may satisfy the SIL requirement for those employees. It does not automatically make every VL rule identical to SIL.
Vacation leave and sick leave: policy first
Vacation leave and sick leave are the benefits employees ask about first, and the ones spreadsheets invent most freely. Accrual (for example, 12 VL days a year as one day a month), proration for mid-year hires, carry-over, and cash conversion are policy decisions unless a CBA or a binding practice fixes them.
If the company grants VL of at least five days, decide in writing whether that VL is the vehicle that meets SIL, and whether unused VL converts like SIL or follows a different company rule. If the company also grants SL, keep SL as its own type. TimeBoxHR is designed to support tracking SL separately from SIL so a medical absence does not silently consume the statutory five days when policy intended a different bucket.
Probationary employees often receive no company VL/SL until regularization, while SIL entitlement is reckoned from one year of service for covered staff. Those two clocks are easy to confuse. Write both.
Statute-based leaves that are not “credits” in the VL sense
Several Republic Acts create leave that is event-based rather than a monthly accrual.
Maternity leave under RA 11210 is 105 days with pay for live birth, whether normal or cesarean; 120 days if the employee qualifies as a solo parent; and 60 days for miscarriage or emergency termination of pregnancy. An optional 30 days without pay may be added with notice. SSS maternity benefit and the employer salary differential are part of payroll, not a VL deduction. The old Labor Code 60-day maternity period is not the current rule for live birth.
Paternity leave under RA 8187 is seven days with pay for married male employees for the first four deliveries of the legitimate spouse with whom he is cohabiting, subject to notice and documentation. Unused paternity leave is generally not convertible to cash.
Solo-parent parental leave under RA 11861 is seven working days with pay each year for qualified solo parents who present a valid Solo Parent Identification Card and who meet the service requirement in the Act, IRR, and current DOLE materials (commonly discussed as at least six months). It is generally forfeitable and not convertible unless the parties agreed otherwise.
VAWC leave under RA 9262 is up to ten days with pay for qualified victim-employees, upon the certification the law requires. Handle the benefit professionally. Collect what HR needs to record the leave type and dates. Do not turn a public leave file into a case history.
Special leave for women under RA 9710 is up to two months (60 days) with full pay following surgery caused by a gynecological disorder, typically after six months of continuous aggregate employment in the last 12 months, with medical certification.
Each of these leaves has a different pay source, documentation path, and conversion rule. A single “special leave” code in payroll will misstate at least one of them.
What the DTR must show before payroll runs
Leave is an attendance fact before it is a peso amount. The DTR should show the employee as on the correct leave type for each date, not merely “absent.” Payroll then applies the pay rule that belongs to that type: paid from credits, unpaid, SSS maternity plus differential, or full company pay for a statute-based leave.
Holiday calendars still matter. An approved leave day that falls on a regular holiday is not automatically the same as working that holiday, and it is not automatically an extra VL deduction on top of holiday pay. Decide the interaction in policy, confirm it against current handbook principles, and apply it in one place.
If leave is approved after DTR lock, treat the correction as an adjustment with an audit trail. Silent overwrites are how employees lose a day of SIL or how payroll pays a day that operations thought was unpaid.
Leave credits are policy-driven except where the statute fixes the benefit
How to calculate leave credits covers annual, monthly, and daily accrual, mid-year hiring, probation, resignation, leave without pay, rounding, carry-over, and conversion. The recurring point is that software must allow those rules to be configured. The law does not prescribe one monthly VL formula for every employer.
How to compute leave pay covers paid versus unpaid days, SIL versus company VL/SL, commutation, and final pay. Do not assume every leave uses the same daily factor or the same conversion moment.
A payroll computation that starts from a reviewed DTR will still be wrong if the leave type on that DTR is wrong. Classification is the first control.
Common ways leave administration fails
- VL, SL, and SIL share one balance named “credits”
- Employees apply in chat, and the DTR still shows absence
- Maternity is deducted from VL
- Paternity is converted to cash because “all unused leave converts”
- Solo-parent leave is granted without a current SPIC on file
- VAWC supporting papers are stored in an open shared drive
- Mid-year hires receive a full annual VL grant with no proration rule
- Final pay ignores unused SIL or converts company SL that policy said was forfeitable
- Accrual continues during long unpaid leave because no one paused the batch
Each failure is either a policy gap or a recording gap. The legal text is rarely the first problem.
Documentation without over-collection
Statute-based leaves require specific proofs: notice of pregnancy, civil-status and cohabitation facts for paternity, a Solo Parent Identification Card, a VAWC-related certification from the barangay or court officers named in the rules, or a physician’s certification for special leave for women. Company VL and SL may require a medical certificate after a stated number of days.
Collect what the rule requires. Store it under the company’s privacy policy. Limit who can open sensitive case notes. A leave type and a date range are usually enough for DTR and payroll. Extra narrative does not make the payslip more accurate.
How TimeBoxHR Handles This
TimeBoxHR is designed to support leave types, assigned entitlement policies, leave credit balances, accrual batches, manual adjustments, leave requests and approval, and employee-portal apply-and-check-balance flows. Approved leave is designed to flow into DTR and payroll. Holiday calendars and configurable payroll rules sit in the same operational picture so a leave day is not retyped into a separate workbook at cutoff.
Simplify employee leave administration with TimeBoxHR
Configure SIL, company VL, company SL, and the statute-based types as separate records. Assign who accrues which policy. Let employees see the balances that belong to them. Let supervisors approve dates. Let payroll read the approved type rather than a nickname in a spreadsheet. When a balance needs a correction, use a manual adjustment with a reason instead of editing a cell that no one can audit later.
TimeBoxHR does not decide whether an employee is managerial, a solo parent, or covered by RA 9262. Those are HR and legal determinations. The system is designed to record the leave you have already classified and to keep that classification aligned with attendance and pay.
Explore TimeBoxHR leave, timekeeping, and payroll features, or start a 30-day free trial to see leave types, balances, and approved dates in the same cutoff as DTR.