Unused vacation at separation, by jurisdiction

Every line below was read from that jurisdiction’s own statute or labour agency page. Where the page did not answer a question, this site says so instead of filling the gap.

Payout and forfeiture rules in 30 jurisdictions
Jurisdiction	Payout at separation	Use it or lose it	Sources read
Alaska	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1
Arizona	Not required	Allowed	1
California	Required	Not allowed	3
Connecticut	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1
District of Columbia	Not established here	Not established here	1
Florida	No statute found	No statute found	2
Georgia	No statute found	No statute found	3
Hawaii	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1
Illinois	Required once earned	Allowed with conditions	2
Indiana	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1
Maine	No statute found	Allowed with conditions	1
Maryland	Required unless forfeited in writing	Allowed with conditions	1
Minnesota	No statute found	No statute found	2
Missouri	Only if the policy says so	No statute found	2
Montana	Required once earned	Not allowed	2
Nevada	Not established here	Allowed with conditions	1
New Jersey	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1
New York	Only if the policy says so	Not established here	1
North Carolina	Required unless forfeited in writing	Allowed with conditions	2
Ohio	No statute found	Not established here	2
Oklahoma	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1
Oregon	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	2
Pennsylvania	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	2
South Dakota	No statute found	No statute found	1
Tennessee	Only if the policy says so	No statute found	1
Vermont	Not required	Allowed with conditions	1
Virginia	No statute found	No statute found	2
Washington	No statute found	Not established here	2
West Virginia	Required if calculable	Allowed with conditions	1
Wyoming	Only if the policy says so	Allowed with conditions	1

Read from the jurisdiction's own statute or labour agency page. Informational only, not legal advice.

Open a jurisdiction

How to read the two columns

Payout at separation answers whether the jurisdiction itself requires an employer to pay an accrued balance when employment ends. Only if the policy says so is the most common answer, and it is not a weak one — in those places the employer’s own written policy becomes the document that is enforced.

Use it or lose it answers whether a policy may wipe a balance that has already been earned. A few jurisdictions forbid that outright. Several allow it only where the employee had notice and a real chance to take the time, which is a different rule from allowing it silently — and the notice requirement is usually where a dispute turns.

Neither column tells you what your own employer owes you. That comes from the policy document you were given, read against the rule where you work.

Jurisdictions this site does not cover

A missing jurisdiction means our build could not open its official source, not that no rule exists. Rather than publish a page assembled from second-hand summaries, we leave it out and say why.

Texas — the statute site serves a JavaScript shell with no text, and the agency host does not resolve from our build.
Michigan — both the agency and the legislature host return 403 to every client we tried.
Massachusetts — the agency host returns 403 and the legislature host refuses the connection.
Colorado — the guidance PDF downloads but its text is not extractable, and the host returns 403 to a reader.
Iowa — the statute PDF yields only its link annotations, not the section text.
Delaware — agency and legislature hosts both refuse the connection.
Idaho — the legislature host resolves but refuses the connection.
North Dakota — agency and legislature hosts both refuse the connection.
Nebraska — agency and legislature hosts both refuse the connection.
South Carolina — agency and legislature hosts both refuse the connection.
Wisconsin — agency and legislature hosts both refuse the connection.