What is on the form
The form has three parts. The employee fills in the first two: name, department and employee number, then the leave itself with the first day, the last day, the total number of days and the date they are back at work, the type of leave as a tick box, who covers their work, and a signature with the date. The third part is the box at the bottom for the manager: approved or not approved, comments and a signature. A full-page form also has a few lines for notes, for example a request to take the days as half days.
Type your company or team name above and it prints in the top right corner. Everything else is left blank on purpose, so the same sheet works for every employee.
Filling in the dates
Write the first and the last day of the leave as dates, not as "next week". Count the working days in between, leaving out weekends and any public holidays your workplace observes, and write that number under Total days; this is usually the number that is taken off the leave balance. Return date is the first day back at work, which matters most to the colleague who covers you and to anyone planning a meeting. Write the dates the way your workplace reads them, and add the weekday if there is any room for doubt.
Choosing the type of leave
Tick Vacation for paid time off from the yearly allowance, Unpaid leave for days without pay, and Personal day where your workplace offers those separately. Other is for anything else your rules allow, such as a day in exchange for overtime or a moving day; write the name your workplace uses on the line. If you are not sure which box applies, ask before you hand the form in, because the type decides how the days are counted. The form deliberately has no box for sick days or other health-related absence; those usually follow their own procedure.
Arranging cover
Cover arranged by is the line that makes a request easy to approve. Before you hand in the form, talk to the colleague who will take over your tasks, agree what they need to know, and write their name here. For a longer absence, add a short handover note: open tasks, where the files are, who to call. A manager who sees that the work is covered has one less reason to say no, and the colleague is not surprised by a note on their desk on Monday morning.
Approving and filing the request
Managers tick Approved or Not approved, add a comment when it helps, for example a counter-proposal with different dates or a condition such as "if the Thursday delivery is covered", and sign with the date. Give the employee a copy or let them take a photo, then file the original with the leave records. Keeping the forms in one folder, sorted by return date, shows at a glance who is away when, and the stack from a whole year makes the balance easy to check. Rules about notice periods, leave balances and carry-over differ from place to place, so check the rules where you live and what your own workplace has agreed.
Tools and templates for planning leave
The business days calculator counts the working days between two dates without weekends and US federal holidays, which gives you the number for the Total days line. The days between dates tool counts the days, weeks and working days between two dates, and the add or subtract days tool finds the return date when you know the first day and how many days you take.
For the team calendar, the work schedule template plans a week of shifts with the cover written in, and the attendance sheet records who was in on which day of the month.
Frequently asked questions
Is the vacation request form free?
Yes. Download the Word file or the PDF as often as you like, for one team or a whole company. There is no signup and no watermark. The PDF has one small line at the bottom of the page that names our website; the Word file has none.
Should I download the Word file or the PDF?
Take the PDF when employees fill the form in by hand: print a stack, or print two per page and cut them apart. Take the Word file when the form is filled in on a computer or sent by email: every field is a table cell you click into, and the tick boxes are characters you can replace with an X. The Word file holds one form per page.
Which types of leave are on the form?
Vacation, unpaid leave, personal day and an Other box with a line to write on, for anything your workplace handles differently. The form does not ask for a reason, and it has no health-related types on purpose: if your workplace needs those, it usually has its own procedure for them.
Can I add our company name?
Yes. Type it into the field above and it prints in the top right corner of the form, in both files. Leave it empty and the corner stays blank. Up to 50 characters fit.
How does the approval part work?
The box at the bottom is for the manager: Approved or Not approved, a few lines for comments such as a condition or an alternative date, and a signature with the date. The employee keeps a copy or a photo of the signed form, and the original goes to whoever keeps the leave records.
Why are some characters missing from the company name in the PDF?
The PDF uses a standard font that covers English and most Western European letters, but no emoji and no other scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic or Chinese. Those characters are left out of the PDF, a few rare accented letters lose the accent, and a note under the field tells you when that happens. The Word file keeps every character as you typed it.