Annual Leave and Working Time in Cyprus

Two statutes decide most arguments about hours and holidays in Cyprus, and they answer different questions. The Annual Holidays with Pay Law 8/1967 says how much leave is earned and how it may be taken. The Organisation of Working Time Law 63(I)/2002 says how long a week may be, what rest has to sit inside it, and what a night shift may look like.

Both are floors rather than ceilings. Where a contract, a collective agreement, a custom or another Law gives more, the more generous position governs, and both statutes say so in terms.

How much leave is earned

Section 5(1) of Law 8/1967 fixes the entitlement for an employee who has worked not less than forty eight weeks in the leave year: twenty working days where the employee works a five day week, and twenty four working days where the employee works a six day week. The proviso to the same subsection makes the point about floors: where an employee is entitled under a law, custom, collective agreement or anything else to a longer period, that longer period substitutes for these days while it remains in force.

Section 5(3) deals with a year in which the employee worked fewer than fifty weeks: the entitlement is proportionate, adjusted under the Regulations made under section 9. It then protects four kinds of absence by treating them as periods of work for that calculation: temporary absence through accident or illness, maternity leave, and absence on parental leave, paternity leave, carer's leave or leave for reasons of force majeure. A year interrupted by illness or a birth is therefore not a year of reduced leave.

What cannot be counted as leave

Section 6(1) lists what does not count as days of annual leave, and it is the answer to several common payroll practices. Public holidays established by law, custom or agreement are not leave days. Neither is maternity leave or paternity leave. Neither are days of incapacity for work due to accident or illness. Neither are days of strike or lock-out.

Taking it, and saving it up

Section 7(1) requires the leave to include one continuous period of not less than nine days. Leave granted only in single days, however willingly the employee takes it that way, does not satisfy the section.

Section 7(2) allows accumulation, but with a ceiling and only by agreement: by agreement between employer and employee, leave may be accumulated up to a maximum equal to the leave the employee is entitled to in respect of two years. Beyond that there is nothing to carry.

Payment in lieu is dealt with by the other statute. Section 8(2) of Law 63(I)/2002 provides that the minimum period of paid annual leave may be replaced by an allowance in lieu only where the employment relationship is terminated. Buying out leave from a continuing employee is outside it, which is worth knowing before a leave balance is settled in cash at year end.

The week, and the average that matters

Section 7(1) of Law 63(I)/2002 provides that, subject to any Law or Regulation containing more favourable arrangements, working time per week may not exceed forty eight hours on average, including overtime. The average is what the section regulates, not any individual week.

Section 7(3) sets the reference period at four months, and section 7(2) keeps periods of paid annual leave and of sick leave neutral in the calculation, so a month off does not create headroom for a heavier average elsewhere.

Section 7(4) permits an individual opt-out from those three subsections, subject to the general principles of protecting health and safety, and it attaches five conditions: the worker consents to the work; the worker suffers no detriment for refusing it; the employer keeps and updates a record of all workers doing such work; the record is available to the competent authority, which may prohibit or restrict exceeding the maximum for health and safety reasons; and the employer supplies information about the workers' consent on request. An opt-out that exists only as a clause in a standard contract, with no record and no real freedom to refuse, does not meet them.

The rest that has to sit inside the week

Section 4(1) gives every worker a minimum daily rest period of eleven consecutive hours in each twenty four, with section 4(2) fixing the twenty four hour period as running from 00:01 to 24:00.

Section 5(1) gives a break where daily working time exceeds six hours. The break is a continuous period of at least fifteen minutes during which the worker is entitled to leave the workstation, and it may not be given contiguously with the start or the end of the working day. A break bolted onto the beginning or the end of a shift is not a break for the purpose of the section.

Section 6(1) gives a minimum weekly rest of twenty four consecutive hours, and section 6(3) allows the employer to choose instead either two periods of twenty four consecutive hours in a fourteen day period, or one continuous period of at least forty eight hours per fourteen days.

Night work

Section 9(1) provides that the working time of night workers may not exceed eight hours on average per twenty four hours, over a period of one month or any other period fixed by collective agreement, and the weekly rest of twenty four hours under section 6(1) is left out of that average.

Section 9(2) is stricter where the work involves special hazards or heavy physical or mental strain: those night workers may not work more than eight hours in any twenty four hour period during which they perform night work. That is a hard limit rather than an average.

Questions we are asked

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws and their application can change, and individual circumstances differ. For advice on your own matter, contact Klitos Platis at klitos@kleanthousplatis.com or telephone +357 22 680 330.

Klitos Platis

Advocate, Partner

Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Published 22 August 2026