When a hotel closes for the winter: unpaid leave, short-time work and the alternatives

No. In Türkiye an employer cannot impose unpaid leave: unpaid leave is a suspension of the contract agreed in writing, or a change of working conditions proposed under Article 22 of Labour Law No. 4857, which the worker may refuse within six working days. No text we read sets a maximum length.

The last guests leave in October, the year-round team stays on the payroll, and someone types the question the search bar already knows: can we simply send them on unpaid leave until spring? The answer is narrower than the autocomplete suggests, and the alternatives each cost something different. After reading this you will be able to place each quiet week on one of five routes: annual leave, agreed unpaid leave, the Article 22 procedure, short-time work, or termination, and know what each one means for pay, SGK filings and the worker's claims.

Can a hotel send staff on unpaid leave when business stops?#

Not by decision alone. Unpaid leave means days the worker does not work and the hotel does not pay, while the employment contract continues; it exists because the two sides agreed to it, not because the employer announced it.

Define the term once for the team: unpaid leave (ücretsiz izin) is a suspension of the duty to work and the duty to pay, with the contract and seniority continuing. Nothing is earned and nothing is paid for those days. This is unpaid leave under Türkiye labor law in its plainest form, and it is narrower than many managers assume.

Labour Law No. 4857 contains no general article giving an employer the right to place staff on unpaid leave at will. The lawful routes are the worker's agreement, the change-of-conditions procedure in Article 22, or one of the specific situations the law names, such as compelling reasons. The unpaid-leave codes created in April 2020 belong to the pandemic period and to Temporary Article 10 of Law 4857; whether any part of that regime still applies to your hotel is a question for your legal adviser, not for a winter plan written from memory.

No text we read sets a maximum length for agreed unpaid leave. Do not promise staff or managers a legal ceiling. Instead fix a start date, an end date and what happens if work returns earlier, in the agreement itself.

Make the agreement real. That means a separate conversation, a document in a language the worker reads, a signed copy for each side, and a record of the exact days taken. Pressure destroys the paper: if signing was presented as the condition for being rehired in spring, the document will be read as pressure rather than agreement. Confirm your own case with a labour law adviser before the first letter goes out; this article describes the framework, not your file.

What happens if the employee refuses to sign?#

The hotel may propose the change in writing, but if the worker does not accept it in writing within six working days the change does not bind them, and the employer's remaining route is termination with notice for a valid reason, stated in writing.

Article 22 of Law No. 4857 covers essential changes that come from the employment contract, from staff regulations and similar sources annexed to it, or from workplace practice. Moving a worker from paid shifts to unpaid weeks is such a change. The proposal must be in writing: a verbal conversation, a WhatsApp message or a rota with empty weeks is not the notification the article describes. The worker has six working days to accept in writing; silence is not acceptance, and the change simply does not bind them.

If the worker refuses, the employer may end the contract by explaining in writing that the change rests on a valid reason, or that another valid reason for termination exists, and by observing the notice period. The worker may then bring a case under Articles 17 to 21. Changes cannot be made retroactive, so a proposal written after the closure has started cannot rewrite those weeks. The parties may of course agree a change at any time, which is why a genuine agreement is the cheaper path (mevzuat.gov.tr, İş Kanunu No. 4857, consolidated text, read 7 November 2026).

The practical sequence: decide the closure dates, write the proposal, hand it over with a receipt, wait out the six working days, then record the outcome for each person separately. For the vocabulary around this, see labour law terms a hotel employer needs, including denkleştirme and puantaj.

Can the closed weeks be covered with annual leave?#

Usually yes, and it should be the first option tested, because annual leave is already paid for and already owed; the question is only whether the balance is large enough to cover the quiet weeks.

Annual leave is a paid entitlement the hotel already carries as a liability. Using it in a closed month turns a cash liability into a scheduled absence rather than adding a new one. The employer schedules annual leave; the worker does not choose the dates alone. Keep the scheduling written and signed so the balance is visibly reduced, not quietly forgotten.

Annual leave runs out. A team with two weeks of balance cannot cover an eight-week closure, which is why the annual leave question and the unpaid leave question are asked in the same meeting. Do not record annual leave as used without dates and signatures; an unsupported balance reduction is the kind of item an inspection or a leaving employee will challenge. Annual leave and unpaid leave are reported differently to SGK, so the payroll team must know which days are which before the monthly filing is prepared.

One statutory detail helps in rare cases: if the hotel closes for more than a week without a break because of a compelling reason, fifteen days of that idle time count as worked for annual leave purposes, provided the worker returns to work (Article 55(d) of Law No. 4857, mevzuat.gov.tr, read 7 November 2026). For the wider shutdown task, see closing a seasonal hotel for winter: the operations checklist.

Does a quiet winter qualify for short-time work?#

Only if the ground is one the law names and, for the crisis, epidemic and compelling-reason grounds, İŞKUR's Board decides that it exists. A normal seasonal slowdown is not something this article can call a qualifying ground, so treat it as a question for your adviser and for İŞKUR.

The legal basis is Additional Article 2 of the Unemployment Insurance Law No. 4447 and, since 1 March 2024, the Regulation on Short-Time Work and the Short-Time Work Allowance (Resmî Gazete 11 June 2024, No. 32573). The grounds are a general economic, sectoral or regional crisis, a general epidemic, or compelling reasons that temporarily cut weekly working time significantly or stop activity wholly or partly.

The shape of the measure is precise. It means a cut of at least one third of weekly working time for at least four weeks in all or part of the workplace, or a full or partial stop of at least four weeks with no continuity requirement. The period may not exceed three months including the start date and may not be shorter than four weeks for the workplace (Regulation, Articles 3 and 4).

The procedure: the employer applies to İŞKUR by the method it sets and notifies any union party to a collective agreement in writing. Whether a crisis, epidemic or compelling reason exists is decided by the İŞKUR Board, and without that decision such applications are rejected. Labour inspectors check eligibility. The physical-effect line is sharp: an earthquake, fire, flood, landslide, epidemic or mobilisation that directly and physically affected the workplace needs no Board decision, while a cash shortage, payment difficulty, a shrinking market or stock build-up is rejected.

Worker eligibility takes 120 days under an employment contract before the start date and at least 450 days of unemployment-insurance premiums in the last three years. The money: 60% of average daily gross earnings over the last twelve months, capped at 150% of the gross monthly minimum wage, paid monthly on the 5th. For compelling reasons payment starts after the one-week period in Articles 24(III) and 40 of Law 4857, and paid periods are deducted from unemployment benefit for terminations within three years. The President may extend the allowance period up to six months (Resmî Gazete, 11 June 2024).

What does an unpaid month look like to SGK and on the payslip?#

The unpaid days are reported as missing days with a reason code, and premium days equal the days in the month minus those missing days; the payslip shows no wage for them.

The reason code is stated in the monthly premium and service document, now part of the combined monthly filing. The codes SGK's announcements name are 19 for unpaid maternity leave, 20 for unpaid travel leave and 21 for other unpaid leave. Short-time days carry their own codes: 18 for the short-time allowance, and 27 where short-time work combines with another missing-day reason. Codes 28 and 29 were created in April 2020 for pandemic unpaid leave under Temporary Article 10 of Law 4857; they belong to that regime, not to a 2026 winter closure (SGK e-Bildirge announcements, 2010 to 2020, still listed on the SGK E-BildirgeV2 page).

For example, clearly illustrative: a worker with three days of unpaid leave in a 28-day February is reported with 25 premium days and 3 missing days.

Since the March 2018 period the reason is stated in the filing, but the supporting documents on the missing days are prepared for the month and kept, not sent. The employer holds them for the period in Article 86 of Law 5510 and produces them if SGK asks; documents not produced after notice, or not prepared as required, are treated as invalid. The allowance itself is paid by İŞKUR, not by the hotel, but the hotel still files the month correctly and keeps the Board decision or the damage evidence with the payroll file. Give the accountant the signed agreement, the dates and the code before the filing window, not after. For the season-end picture, see SGK exit codes at season end and how a hotel reports them.

When the closure is a fire, flood or epidemic, not a season#

Compelling reasons give both sides a right of immediate termination, and the worker who cannot work because of them is paid half wages for each day of the waiting period, up to one week.

The worker may end the contract before its term, or without waiting for the notice period, if compelling reasons arise at the workplace that require work to stop for more than one week (Article 24(III)). The employer may do the same if a compelling reason keeps the worker from working at the workplace for more than one week (Article 25(III)). Article 40 pays half wages for each day of that waiting period, up to one week, to a worker who cannot work or is not made to work because of those reasons. Article 55(d) adds the fifteen idle days to annual leave service mentioned above, on condition that the worker returns to work (mevzuat.gov.tr, read 7 November 2026).

A planned seasonal closure is not a compelling reason. It is foreseeable, it comes from the hotel's own calendar, and it is exactly what the agreement and Article 22 routes exist for. Write down the event, its dates and its effect on the building, because the same file answers İŞKUR, the insurer and any later dispute.

Which option fits your hotel? A comparison#

Start with the option that costs least and disturbs the contract least, and move down the list only as far as the quiet weeks actually require.

Annual leave comes first: already owed, already paid, no new agreement needed, but limited by the balance each worker holds. Agreed unpaid leave comes second: flexible in length, but it needs a genuine written agreement and a real choice, and it removes pay and premium days for those weeks. Article 22 comes third: a written proposal, six working days to accept, and termination with notice as the fallback if the worker refuses; it is orderly but it can end contracts you wanted to keep. Short-time work comes fourth: it protects income through İŞKUR and keeps the team, but it depends on a ground the law names and, on most grounds, on a Board decision, so it cannot be arranged in a week. Termination comes last: notice pay, and severance where it applies, plus the loss of trained staff you will need to rehire; the cost lands in one month instead of spreading across the quiet ones.

Across all five, the same three records decide how the winter is judged later: the signed document, the exact dates, and the correct SGK code.

What to do next#

Write the closure calendar first, then match each week to one of the five routes and put the matching document in the file before the week arrives: an annual leave schedule, a signed unpaid leave agreement with dates, a written Article 22 proposal with its six working days, or an İŞKUR application with its ground. Take the finished calendar, the agreements and the SGK codes to your labour law adviser and your accountant together, because the same winter is judged by both.