Vacation Days Planner
Plan PTO from annual allowance, days used, and planned trips.
Returns remaining balance, monthly accrual rate, and a guide to use days evenly across the year.
Keeping track of your vacation days — how many you’ve earned, how many you’ve used, and how many you have left — prevents the unwelcome surprise of reaching December with zero PTO remaining, or losing days you forgot to take.
Formula: Days Remaining = Days Accrued − Days Used
For accrual-based PTO: Days Accrued = (Days Worked ÷ Total Working Days in Year) × Annual PTO Allowance
Or, if you accrue by pay period: Days Accrued = Pay Periods Completed × Accrual Rate per Period
What each variable means:
- Annual PTO Allowance — your total entitled vacation days per year (typically 10–25 days depending on employer and seniority).
- Accrual Rate — for biweekly (26 pay periods) with 15 days/year: 15 ÷ 26 = 0.577 days per pay period.
- Days Used — all full and partial days taken as vacation, personal days, or floating holidays (check whether sick days are separate or pooled with PTO).
Worked example: Annual allowance: 15 days. Biweekly pay (26 periods/year). Currently in pay period 18.
Days accrued = (18 ÷ 26) × 15 = 0.6923 × 15 = 10.38 days earned Days used so far: 6 days Days remaining = 10.38 − 6 = 4.38 days available
U.S. average PTO by years of service:
- 0–1 year: 10 days
- 1–5 years: 14 days
- 5–10 years: 17 days
- 10+ years: 20+ days
Planning tip: Reserve at least 2–3 days of buffer for unexpected personal needs. Don’t let days expire — unused PTO is real money lost if your employer doesn’t pay it out.