Getting married (or registering as a domestic partnership, under the terms recognized by your collective bargaining agreement) entitles you to a specific paid leave, separate from your ordinary vacation, whose minimum duration is set by law, though many collective agreements improve on it.
The legal minimum duration
The Workers' Statute recognizes a minimum paid leave of 15 calendar days for marriage. This is the legal minimum, and numerous collective bargaining agreements extend this duration, so it's always worth checking the agreement that applies to your job before assuming the legal minimum is the only reference point.
Calendar days, not working days
Unlike other types of leave expressed in working days, marriage leave is counted in calendar days, which means those 15 days include both working days and non-working days (weekends, public holidays) that fall within the period taken.
When you can take it
The law doesn't require that the leave coincide exactly with the date of the ceremony, although it must bear a reasonable time relationship to the triggering event (the marriage). In practice, it's common to take it immediately before or after the wedding, whichever suits the employee, though it's advisable to notify the employer with the reasonable advance notice usually required for any paid leave.
Domestic partnerships: it depends on your collective agreement
The minimum legal right is expressly tied to marriage. Extending this leave to registered domestic partnerships isn't automatically guaranteed under general state law; it depends on whether the applicable collective bargaining agreement expressly recognizes this equivalence, something increasingly common but not universal across all agreements.
This leave is paid: it doesn't affect your salary
During these days of leave, you keep your usual pay as normal, since this is paid leave: the employer must pay you as if you had worked those days, with no salary reduction associated with taking it.
Compatibility with ordinary vacation
Marriage leave is independent of your annual vacation: taking this leave doesn't reduce or affect your ordinary vacation days for the year, which remain untouched regardless of having taken this additional leave.
Check what other paid leave your collective agreement recognizes
Besides marriage leave, most collective agreements recognize other types of paid leave (for the birth of a child beyond the general leave, for the death of a family member, for moving house, among others). It's worth reviewing the full list in your collective bargaining agreement to know all your rights.
Calculate your usual take-home pay
Our net salary calculator lets you estimate your monthly take-home pay, which stays unchanged while you're taking this type of paid leave.