Carry-over

How carry-over moves unused days into the next Leave Calendar, and when carried-over days expire.

Carry-over moves the unused days of a Leave Balance into the next Leave Calendar when a Leave Calendar ends.

How it works

The rules are on the Allowance Policy

Each Allowance Policy has its own carry-over rules. An employee follows the rules of their Allowance Policy for that Allowance Type. To learn how policies work, see Allowances and entitlement.

Setting	What it does
Allow Carry-Over	Turns carry-over on for the policy. It is off for a new policy. The Standard policy of Annual Leave uses the carry-over settings chosen at company setup.
Maximum Carry-Over Days	The most days that move into the next Leave Calendar, from 1 to 10.
Carry-Over Expires After	How long carried-over days last. Set the Unit to Days (up to 365), Months (up to 12) or Years (up to 3).

Leavely checks once a day, soon after midnight UTC. Dates follow the UTC day. For a Leave Calendar that ends on December 31, carry-over normally runs on January 1, the first day of the next Leave Calendar.

If a check is missed or an employee's carry-over fails, Leavely tries again while the next Leave Calendar is Current. It only moves days from the Leave Calendar immediately before it. Both Leave Calendars must be active. Carry-over does not move days through older years or change a Leave Calendar that has ended.

For each Leave Balance in the Leave Calendar that ended:

Leavely adds the entitlement and the carried-over days that have not expired, then subtracts the days used. The result is the unused days.
It moves the unused days up to the Maximum Carry-Over Days of the policy. Days above the maximum do not move. Half days move too: with 3.5 unused days, 3.5 days carry over.
It adds the moved days to the employee's Leave Balance for the same Allowance Type in the next Leave Calendar.

Leavely completes the carry-over check once for each source Leave Balance, including when Allow Carry-Over is off or no days can move. Later policy changes do not repeat a completed check. Carry-over preserves the entitlement already recorded in the next Leave Calendar.

The next Leave Calendar must exist. If it does not, carry-over waits. It can run after you add that Leave Calendar only while that calendar is Current. To add it, see Leave Calendars.

When carried-over days expire

The expiry period starts on the first day of the new Leave Calendar. For example, with Carry-Over Expires After set to 3 Months, days carried over on January 1, 2027 expire on April 1, 2027.

Leavely checks for expiry once a day, soon after 1:00 UTC. On the expiry date, it removes only the unused carried-over days from the Leave Balance. Days already used stay spent. It does not count used days against carried-over days first.

The rules are read on the day

Leavely does not save the rules of a Leave Calendar in advance. At carry-over, and at each expiry check, it uses the Allowance Policy the employee has on that day, with the rules the policy has on that day. A delayed carry-over also uses the rules on the day it runs, even if they changed after the year ended.

A change to the rules before a Leave Calendar ends changes how many days carry over from it.
A change to Carry-Over Expires After also changes when days that already carried over expire.
Days that already carried over stay in the Leave Balance when you lower Maximum Carry-Over Days or turn off Allow Carry-Over.

Worked example

The employees follow a policy with 20 days From hire, Allow Carry-Over on, Maximum Carry-Over Days set to 5, and Carry-Over Expires After set to 3 Months. The 2026 Leave Calendar runs from January 1 to December 31, 2026, and the 2027 Leave Calendar exists. The numbers are examples.

Carry-over with a maximum

On January 1, 2027, Leavely carries over the unused days of 2026.

Employee	Entitlement for 2026	Used in 2026	Unused days	Carried into 2027	Not carried over	2027 total
A	20	12	20 − 12 = 8	5	3	20 + 5 = 25 days
B	20	17	20 − 17 = 3	3	0	20 + 3 = 23 days
C	20	20	20 − 20 = 0	0	0	20 days

Employee A has more unused days than the maximum, so 5 days move and 3 days do not.

Carried-over days expire

Employee A carried 5 days into 2027. Three months after January 1, 2027, the expiry date is April 1, 2027.

Date	Entitlement	Carried over	Used	Available
January 1, 2027	20	5	0	20 + 5 − 0 = 25 days
March 31, 2027	20	5	3	20 + 5 − 3 = 22 days
April 1, 2027	20	0	3	20 + 0 − 3 = 17 days

On April 1, Leavely removes all 5 carried-over days because the 3 used days are covered by the entitlement. If the employee had used 23 days instead, 3 carried-over days would remain to cover that usage, and only the 2 unused carried-over days would expire. With 90 Days instead of 3 Months, the expiry date is also April 1, 2027.

What happens when

Carry-over is off on the policy

Unused days do not move to the next Leave Calendar. Once Leavely has completed the check with carry-over off, turning it on later does not transfer those days.

You change the carry-over rules before a Leave Calendar ends

The new rules apply when that Leave Calendar ends. For example, if you change Maximum Carry-Over Days from 5 to 8 in December 2026, employee A carries 8 days into 2027.

You change the expiry after days carried over

Leavely calculates the expiry date again from the first day of the Leave Calendar. If you change 3 Months to 6 Months in February 2027, employee A's 5 days expire on July 1, 2027 instead of April 1. If the new expiry date is today or earlier, Leavely removes the unused carried-over days at the next daily check.