Pro-rata leave calculator
How much earned, casual and sick leave a mid-year joiner or leaver gets for the part of the leave year they actually serve. Pick monthly accrual with a joining-day cutoff or daily pro-rata, choose the rounding, and see the formula and a month-by-month accrual table.
Policy and dates
Result
Enter the joining date and the result updates as you type.
How this is calculated
- Leave year: the twelve months starting on the 1st of your chosen month that contain the joining date. A joiner on 10 June 2026 with an April year is in April 2026 to March 2027; with a January year, January to December 2026.
- Service window: from the joining date to the exit date, or to the end of the leave year if there is no exit (or the exit is later). The result is for this year only; a full year's entitlement starts from the next leave year.
- Monthly accrual: entitlement = annual days ÷ 12 × months counted. A month counts in full or not at all. The joining month counts when the joining day is on or before the cutoff (default 15). The exit month, if inside the year, counts when the exit day is on or after the cutoff, the mirror of the joining rule. Every month in between counts.
- Daily pro-rata: entitlement = annual days × days served ÷ days in the leave year (365 or 366), with every calendar day of service counted, including the joining and exit days.
- Rounding is applied once, to each type's final figure: none (two decimals), nearest 0.5, or round down to whole days. The monthly table shows unrounded accruals so the running total adds up.
Assumptions
- Leave is credited for service, not in advance: a joiner on 20 November with a January year and a 15th cutoff gets one month of accrual (December), not two.
- Carry-forward from a previous year, leave already taken, and encashment are out of scope; the tool gives the gross credit for the partial year. For the per-day value of unused leave see the leave encashment calculator.
- The default rows (18 earned, 7 casual, 7 sick) are common private-sector figures, not statutory minimums. Replace them with your policy's numbers; the formula is the useful part.
- Probation does not change the arithmetic here. If your policy withholds leave during probation, apply that rule to the result.
ZekoHR does this on hire automatically: each leave type carries an accrual schedule and a pro-rate method (none, by month or by day), and the initial allocation is posted to the employee's ledger the moment they are added, so a mid-year joiner's balance is right from day one without a spreadsheet. See leave management in Core HR → For how to structure the policy itself, read the leave policy guide for Indian companies.
Common questions
Is pro-rating leave for new joiners legal in India?
Yes, and it is the norm. Statutory earned leave under the Factories Act and most state Shops and Establishments Acts is itself earned against days worked, so a partial year naturally gives a partial entitlement. What you cannot do is pro-rate below the statutory floor that applies to your establishment. Casual and sick leave are mostly policy or state rules; follow whichever is stricter.
Why use a joining-day cutoff instead of counting exact days?
Simplicity. Most Indian companies credit leave monthly, and a rule like "join by the 15th and the month counts" is easy to explain, easy to check and produces round numbers. Daily pro-rata is more precise but yields figures like 11.84 days that then need a rounding rule anyway. Either is defensible; what matters is that the policy states which one applies and that payroll and HR use the same one.
How should a leaver's entitlement be handled?
Enter the exit date and the tool pro-rates to it. Compare the result with the leave actually taken: a positive balance of earned leave is usually encashed in the full and final settlement, and leave taken beyond the pro-rated accrual is typically recovered. Casual and sick leave normally lapse rather than being paid out.
What if the leave year is April to March and someone joins in February?
They get the February and March share of the current year (two months of accrual under the monthly method, if they join by the cutoff), and then the full annual entitlement from 1 April. Select April as the year start and the tool picks the right year automatically.
Should leave be credited upfront or accrued each month?
Monthly accrual is the safer default: the balance always reflects service rendered, so exits are clean and nobody takes twelve months of leave in month two and then resigns. Upfront credit is friendlier but needs a recovery clause for leavers. This calculator gives the same total either way; the difference is when the balance becomes available.