The German Federal Leave Act (Bundesurlaubsgesetz) provides that employees forfeit the right to claim outstanding holiday entitlement at the end of the calendar year or at the end of a specific transfer period; in other words, all holiday must be granted and taken beforehand. Under previous case law, this did even apply in the event that the employer declined an employee’s holiday request even though the request was made in a timely manner.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, however, has taken a different approach. In its ruling of 6 November 2018, the court decided that the regulation according to which employees automatically lose annual leave if they have not submitted a holiday request is not in line with European law. Following this decision, the Federal Labour Court, the highest labour court in Germany, developed its current case law and stated in its ruling of 19 February 2019 that the employer is obliged “to ensure in a concrete and fully transparent manner that the employee is actually in a position to take their paid annual leave by formally requesting them – if necessary – to do so”.