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Leave application for office

Twelve versions, as an email or a printed letter, with the dates and the handover line your manager actually needs in order to approve it.

Key takeaways

→Four facts get leave approved without a reply: the dates, who is covering what, whether you are reachable, and the day you are back.
→You have to name a leave category. You do not have to explain a medical condition or a family matter, and a leave application sits in your file for years.
→Only earned or privilege leave normally encashes when you resign. Casual and sick leave usually lapse — so the composition of your allowance matters more than the total.
→The statutory floor is an eligibility gate, not an allowance: 180 days worked in a calendar year, reduced from 240 under the OSH Code.
→A refusal that is on the record protects the leave. Leave applied for and refused can be carried forward without the usual limit; a verbal refusal quietly costs you the days.
→Working from home is working, not leave. If it is recorded as leave, query it the same month.

What a manager actually reads

Most leave-application templates are written as exercises in politeness: three paragraphs of courtesy wrapped around a date. That gets the tone right and the job wrong. A manager approving leave is solving one problem — what happens to the work while you are away — and an application that does not answer it has to be replied to before it can be approved.

So the order matters. State the dates first and exactly. Name who is covering and what they are covering, with a person's name in it. Say whether you will be reachable, if you are willing to be. Give the day you return, which is the date your manager will actually put in a calendar. Then one line of courtesy. That is the whole application, and it is usually shorter than the templates it replaces.

The one thing worth more than all of it is the cover line. “Rahul will handle the vendor reconciliation and the month-end close” is useful. “I have handed over my work” is not, because it leaves your manager to discover what your work was.

Put these in

·Exact first and last day, and the day you return.
·The leave category — sick, casual, earned, bereavement.
·A named colleague and the specific work they are covering.
·Anything time-critical that falls inside the dates.
·Whether you are reachable, if you are willing to be.

Leave these out

·Medical detail. "Unwell" is sufficient and permanent records are not the place for symptoms.
·The substance of a family or personal matter.
·Apologies repeated more than once.
·A promise to be fully available, which defeats the point of leave.
·Any complaint or grievance. That belongs in its own letter.

The leave types, and which one to ask for

Leave types in India, what each is for and whether it encashes
Type	What it is for	Notice expected	Encashed on exit?
Earned / privilege leave	Planned holidays. Accrues month by month and carries forward subject to a cap.	A fortnight for a few days; a month or more for a longer block.	Normally yes — this is the bucket that pays out.
Casual leave	Short unplanned absences, usually capped per occasion.	Same day is normal.	Normally no — it lapses.
Sick leave	Illness. A certificate is usually expected beyond two or three days.	The same morning.	Normally no — it lapses.
Bereavement leave	A death in the family. Many policies provide a fixed short block.	As soon as you can.	No.
Maternity leave	A statutory entitlement, so the application is a notification as much as a request.	Well in advance, with HR involved.	No — but ask for the salary position in writing.
Paternity leave	Where policy provides it. Not a central statutory entitlement for private employees.	In advance where possible.	No.
Leave without pay	Where the absence exceeds your balance. The terms need agreeing in writing.	As much as possible.	Not applicable.
Work from home	Not leave at all. You are working, elsewhere.	A day or two, or per policy.	Not applicable — and it should not touch your balance.

The takeaway: the last column is the one with money in it. Ask for casual leave when you could have asked for earned leave and you have spent a day that would otherwise have been paid out when you leave — which is a small loss each time and a real one across a career.

What you will be asked to produce, by reason

Offering the document in the application itself, rather than waiting to be asked, is the difference between one message and three. None of this is central statute — it is what company policies in India typically require — so your own policy document governs.

Documentation typically expected for each kind of leave
Reason	Usually asked for	When
Sick, one or two days	Nothing.	—
Sick, beyond the policy threshold	A medical certificate covering the dates, and sometimes a fitness certificate before you return.	Threshold is commonly two or three consecutive days.
Casual leave	Nothing.	—
Personal reasons	Nothing. You name the category, not the facts.	—
Family emergency	Nothing at the time. Occasionally a brief note afterwards.	Apply as soon as you reasonably can.
Examinations	The examination schedule or hall ticket, for the record.	With the application.
Your marriage	Rarely anything. Some policies ask for the invitation or a date confirmation.	With the application, well in advance.
Maternity	Medical documentation and HR paperwork, which HR will specify.	Well before the leave starts.
Extended or unpaid leave	Nothing, but get the terms confirmed in writing — paid, unpaid, and the effect on continuity of service.	Before the leave starts.

The takeaway: only two rows here involve real paperwork, and in both cases attaching it up front closes the question immediately. Everywhere else the document people worry about producing is not actually required — a sick note for a single day least of all.

Typical annual paid leave, by kind of employer

Days a year, split by leave type. These are observed market bands, not legal entitlements — your own policy document is the authority for your allowance, and the statutory floor works differently (see below).

Earned / privilege leave
Casual leave
Sick leave

The takeaway: the headline total is the least useful number here. What matters on the way out is the composition, because in most Indian policies only earned or privilege leave encashes when you resign — casual and sick leave simply lapse. Two employers both offering “30 days” can therefore differ by a week's pay in your final settlement. Work out what your balance is worth.

View the figures as a table

Typical annual paid leave by employer type
Employer type	Earned	Casual	Sick	Total	Note
IT services and large corporates	18	7	7	32	Often a single consolidated pool rather than three buckets.
Product and technology firms	20	6	8	34	The most generous band, and the likeliest to offer uncapped sick leave.
Banking and financial services	15	8	8	31	Earned leave is usually the only bucket that encashes.
Manufacturing	15	7	7	29	Closest to the statutory pattern, and usually the most strictly tracked.
Startups and small firms	12	6	6	24	Widest variation, and the most likely to have no written policy at all.

What the law actually gives you, and what it does not

Articles on this subject tend to quote a confident national leave entitlement. The honest position is more awkward and more useful.

The statutory floor sits in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, in force since 21 November 2025. Its most significant change is the eligibility gate: a worker becomes entitled to paid annual leave on working 180 days or more in a calendar year, where the previous regime required 240. If you changed jobs in the middle of a year, that reduction is the difference between accruing paid leave and accruing none.

But the leave provisions apply to workers, and to supervisors only up to a wage ceiling. Someone employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity falls outside them entirely and depends on their contract, any certified standing orders, and the shops and establishments Act of the State the establishment is registered in. For most readers of this page, in other words, company policy is the binding number — and it is usually more generous than the floor, which is why the chart above is about policy rather than statute. Where State law is more favourable than the Code, the employee keeps the benefit of the State law.

Two further rules are worth knowing because they are the ones that protect days you have already earned. Up to 30 days can be carried into the next calendar year. And leave that you applied for and were refused can be carried forward without any limit — which is the strongest practical argument for putting every leave request in writing, including the ones you expect to be turned down.

How a leave balance moves across a calendar year

On a typical policy of 1.5 days a month, with leave taken in April, August and November. The accrual rate is company policy, not statute. The one statutory line here is the 180-day eligibility gate under the OSH Code.

The takeaway: leave accrues a day and a half at a time and gets spent in blocks, so your balance is highest in the months you are least likely to be thinking about it. The two dates worth putting in a calendar are the point in the year when you cross the 180-working-day statutory gate — which matters most if you joined mid-year — and 31 December, when anything above the carry-forward limit your policy sets is decided. A worker who applied for leave and was refused can carry that leave forward without limit, which is a rule worth knowing before you let a refusal go unrecorded. Leave during your notice period works differently again.

View the figures as a table

Leave accrued, taken and remaining by month
Month	Accrued to date	Taken this month	Balance
Jan	1.5	—	1.5
Feb	3.0	—	3.0
Mar	4.5	—	4.5
Apr	6.0	3	3.0
May	7.5	—	4.5
Jun	9.0	—	6.0
Jul	10.5	—	7.5
Aug	12.0	6	3.0
Sep	13.5	—	4.5
Oct	15.0	—	6.0
Nov	16.5	4	3.5
Dec	18.0	—	5.0

Subject lines, and what to write for each reason

Managers triage on the subject line, and an application whose subject hides the dates gets opened later. Each row below is the subject the generator uses, and the one sentence that carries the request.

Subject lines and the core sentence for each leave reason
Reason	Subject line	What the request sentence does
Sick, a day or two	Sick leave request	States that you are unwell and the dates, with no medical detail.
Sick, longer	Sick leave request with medical certificate	Offers the certificate up front, closing the question in one message.
Casual	Casual leave request	Notes that the dates were chosen to avoid anything time-critical.
Personal	Leave request	Names it as personal, declines to elaborate, and moves to the dates.
Family emergency	Urgent leave — family emergency	Apologises once for the notice, and promises an update if it extends.
Bereavement	Bereavement leave	Two lines. Nothing more is owed.
Your marriage	Leave request for my marriage	Flags the long notice, so cover can be arranged early.
Examinations	Leave request for examinations	Offers the exam schedule for the record.
Maternity	Maternity leave notification	Frames it as a notification, and asks for the salary position in writing.
Paternity	Paternity leave request	Asks for the approved dates to be confirmed in writing.
Work from home	Request to work from home	Says explicitly that this is not leave, so it is not deducted as leave.
Extended or unpaid	Request for extended leave	Asks how much is paid, how much unpaid, and the effect on continuity of service.

The takeaway: two of these twelve are doing legal work rather than social work. The maternity version asks for the salary position in writing, and the extended-leave version asks how the period is treated and what it does to continuity of service — because both are questions that are cheap to answer in advance and expensive to argue about later.

What happens to unused leave when you resign

This is where a leave balance stops being an administrative detail and becomes money. The earned or privilege leave standing to your credit on your last working day is normally encashed as part of your full and final settlement. Casual and sick leave normally lapse, and nobody will point that out to you.

Two things decide the amount, and neither is fixed by central statute: the number of days your policy treats as encashable, and the salary component the encashment is calculated on. Basic, Basic plus DA, and gross produce very different answers on the same balance. That is why two colleagues resigning in the same week with the same number of days can receive amounts that differ by a factor of two.

The practical consequence is about timing. The balance that counts is the one on your last working day, so an exit planned a fortnight earlier can leave accrued days unpaid, and leave taken during notice may reduce the balance that would otherwise have been encashed. Work it out before you give notice.

Leave encashment basics — what decides the amount
Question	The position	Where the answer comes from
Which leave encashes?	Normally earned or privilege leave only. Casual and sick leave usually lapse.	Company policy
How many days?	The balance standing to your credit on your last working day, sometimes subject to a policy cap.	Company policy, and your own leave record
On what salary?	Basic, Basic plus DA, or gross — and the three produce very different answers on the same balance.	Company policy. Not fixed by central statute.
Is there a statutory maximum?	No prescribed maximum limit for encashment under the OSH Code. Leave applied for and refused can be encashed at the end of the calendar year.	OSH & WC Code 2020, per the Ministry's FAQ
When is it paid?	With your full and final settlement, alongside unpaid salary and gratuity.	Code on Wages timing for final settlement
Is it taxable?	Partly. There is a lifetime exemption ceiling across all employers, and a least-of test decides how much of your encashment falls inside it.	Income-tax Act — worked through on our exit tax page

The takeaway: the row that catches people is the third. Nothing in central law fixes the salary component leave encashment is computed on, so two colleagues resigning in the same week with identical balances can be paid amounts that differ by a factor of two. Find the clause in your policy before you give notice.

Calculate your leave encashment Leave during notice period

Frequently asked questions

How do I write a leave application for office?

Lead with the four facts your manager needs to approve it without replying to ask a question: the exact dates, who is covering what, whether you will be reachable, and the day you are back. Then one line of courtesy, and stop. The commonest mistake is the opposite — a long explanation of the reason and no mention of cover, which is precisely the application that sits unanswered while your manager works out who will do your work. The generator above puts them in that order for you.

Do I have to give a reason for taking leave?

You have to name a category — sick, casual, earned, bereavement — because that is what your policy and payroll run on. You do not have to explain the underlying facts, and for a personal matter you should not. A leave application goes into your personnel file and stays there for years, and a description of a medical condition or a family difficulty is information you cannot take back. "For personal reasons" is a complete and professional answer, and the personal-reasons version above says so without being defensive about it.

What is the difference between casual, sick and earned leave?

Casual leave is for short, unplanned absences, usually a day or two at a time and usually capped per occasion. Sick leave is for illness, and beyond a few days most policies ask for a medical certificate. Earned or privilege leave is the one that accrues month by month, is meant for planned holidays, and is almost always the only bucket that gets encashed when you resign — casual and sick leave typically lapse. That last difference is why the composition of your allowance matters more than the headline total.

How much paid leave am I legally entitled to in India?

There are two answers and most articles give only the generous one. The statutory floor comes from the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, in force since 21 November 2025: a worker becomes eligible for paid annual leave on working 180 days or more in a calendar year, reduced from the 240 days the old regime required. But the leave provisions apply to workers, and only to supervisors earning up to a wage ceiling — managerial staff fall outside them and depend on their contract, standing orders and the State's shops and establishments Act. For most white-collar employees the binding number is therefore company policy, which is usually more generous than the floor. Your policy document is the authority on your own allowance.

Should I send a leave application as an email or a letter?

An email, in almost every case, because it timestamps itself and you keep a copy without doing anything. The exception is where your employer runs a formal leave register or your policy requires a signed form — then send the email anyway and attach or follow up with the printed version. The generator above produces both: the email form drops the date and address block, because nobody puts a recipient's postal address at the top of an email, and the letter form keeps it.

What should I write when the reason is personal and private?

Name it as personal, acknowledge briefly that you are not elaborating, and move straight to the dates and the cover. Something like: leave for personal reasons from the third to the fifth, I appreciate this is short of detail, I would rather keep the matter private, and I have planned the dates to cause as little disruption as possible. That reads as professional rather than evasive, because it answers the only question your manager actually has to resolve — what happens to the work.

Do I need a medical certificate for sick leave?

It depends on your policy, and the threshold is usually two or three consecutive days. For a single day most employers ask for nothing. Beyond the threshold, expect to be asked, and some policies also want a fitness certificate before you return after a longer illness. Two practical points: offer the certificate in the application rather than waiting to be asked, which closes the question in one message; and send the application on the first day of the absence even if you cannot get a certificate until later.

Can my employer refuse my leave application?

Yes, for earned leave in particular, because the timing of planned leave is a business decision. What matters is what happens next. A worker who applied for leave with wages and was not granted it can carry that leave forward without the usual limit — so a refusal that is on the record protects the leave, and a refusal that happens verbally and is never written down quietly costs you the days. If leave is refused, reply to your own application in writing noting the refusal and asking for the position to be confirmed. The ordinary carry-forward limit is 30 days.

What happens to my unused leave when I resign?

The earned or privilege leave on your books is normally encashed as part of your full and final settlement; casual and sick leave normally lapse. The rate at which it is encashed, and the salary component it is calculated on, come from your policy rather than from central statute, which is why two people with identical balances can receive very different amounts. Work it out before you resign rather than after, because the balance on your last working day is the one that counts and a badly timed exit can waste a week of accrued leave.

Can I take leave during my notice period?

Sometimes, and it is more contested than any other leave question in India. Many employers refuse leave during notice outright, or treat days taken as not counting towards the notice served, which extends your last working day and can create a shortfall the employer then charges you for. The answer turns on your contract and your employer's policy rather than on statute. It is worth settling in writing before you take the days, not after.

How much notice should I give for leave?

For casual or sick leave, as soon as you know — the same morning is normal and expected. For planned earned leave, the convention is a fortnight for a few days and a month or more for anything over a week, and longer still if you are the only person who does something. For a marriage or planned surgery, tell your manager informally as early as you can and send the formal application once the dates are fixed. Notice is less about the policy minimum than about whether cover can realistically be arranged.

Is a work from home request the same as leave?

No, and conflating them is a real risk to your leave balance. Working from home is working: you are on duty, your normal hours apply, and nothing should be deducted from your leave. A leave application, by contrast, is a request not to work. If your employer records a work-from-home day as leave, query it the same month — it is the kind of error that goes unnoticed for a year and then shows up as a shortfall in your final settlement. The work-from-home version above says explicitly that it is a request to work remotely rather than to take leave, for exactly that reason.

What should a handover note in a leave application say?

A person and a task, not a reassurance. "Rahul will handle the vendor reconciliation and the month-end close" is useful; "I have handed over my work" is not, because it leaves your manager to find out what your work was. If something time-critical falls inside the dates, name it and say who is doing it. One specific sentence here saves more back-and-forth than anything else in the application.

Can I apply for leave after taking it?

For an emergency or sudden illness, yes — that is normal and the application is a record rather than a request. Send it as soon as you reasonably can, and do not apologise more than once. For planned leave, a retrospective application reads as an absence being regularised, which is a different and less comfortable conversation. The generator warns you if you pick a planned reason with a start date in the past, and suggests the family emergency version instead.

1
Send it as an email, and keep the reply
An email timestamps itself. If leave is refused, reply noting the refusal — refused leave carries forward without the usual limit, but only if there is a record of it.
2
Check your leave balance against your own record
Payroll and your manager sometimes count differently, and a loss-of-pay line on a payslip is the first place that shows up.
How to read your payslip
3
If you are thinking about resigning, value the balance first
Only earned leave encashes, and the balance on your last working day is the one that counts.
Open the leave encashment calculator

Sources for the figures on this page

Days a worker must work in a calendar year to become eligible for paid annual leave (reduced from 240)
PIB, Ministry of Labour & Employment, on the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020: "The workers employed in an establishment are entitled for paid leave in a calendar year on working of 180 days or more in such calendar year, earlier workers had to work for 240 days for becoming eligible for paid leave." The Code came into force on 21 November 2025.
View sourceChecked 2026-10-14
Monthly wage up to which a supervisor is still covered by the OSHWC leave provisions
MoLE Additional FAQs on Labour Codes (16.03.2026), Q20 — leave provisions apply to workers, and to supervisors whose wage does not exceed Rs 18,000 per month
View sourceChecked 2026-08-13
Days of leave a covered worker may carry to the next calendar year
MoLE Additional FAQs on Labour Codes (16.03.2026), Q21 — up to 30 days carried forward; leave applied for and refused carries forward without limit
View sourceChecked 2026-08-13
Maximum leave a covered worker may encash under the OSHWC Code — none prescribed
MoLE Additional FAQs on Labour Codes (16.03.2026), Q26 — no prescribed maximum limit; on separation the worker is entitled to encash the leave to their credit
View sourceChecked 2026-08-13
An employee keeps a more favourable State law benefit despite the Code prevailing on inconsistency
MoLE Additional FAQs on Labour Codes (16.03.2026), Q25
View sourceChecked 2026-08-13
Statutory limits on working hours, and the overtime rate
PIB, Ministry of Labour & Employment, on the OSH & WC Code 2020: "No employee shall be required to work for more than 8 hours in a day and 48 hours in a week", with the power to fix intervals and spread-over given to the appropriate Government; overtime, with the worker's consent, is paid at "twice the ... wages". The release notes the earlier overtime cap of 75 hours a quarter can now be fixed by the appropriate Government.
View sourceChecked 2026-10-14
Is every employee entitled to a written appointment letter in a prescribed format? Yes, since the labour codes commenced
PIB, Ministry of Labour & Employment, on the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, under "Formalisation through Appointment Letters": "Every employee will be given appointment letters in the prescribed format specifying the details of the employee, designation, category, details of the wages, details of social security etc." The Code came into force on 21 November 2025. The same release records that the Code replaces 13 Acts with one, and reduces 55 forms to 20.
View sourceChecked 2026-10-14

What changed

14 October 2026 — first published. Written against the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, in force from 21 November 2025, which reduced the paid-leave eligibility threshold from 240 days worked in a calendar year to 180. The Code's accrual rate is deliberately not stated anywhere on this page: it is reported as one day for every twenty days worked, but it could not be read off a government source in this pass, so the accrual chart is drawn on typical company policy and labelled as such.

Written and reviewed by Deepak Middha, Chartered Accountant (ICAI, India) and founder of LayoffNext.

Legal and tax positions last checked 14 October 2026Editorial standards

Deepak MiddhaFounder of LayoffNext

Founder of LayoffNext. Chartered Accountant and finance educator who builds free tools for people navigating layoffs.

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