Working on public holidays in a hotel: pay, consent and time records

National and general holidays are set by Law No. 2429. Under Labour Law No. 4857, a worker who does not work that day is paid the day's wage in full, and a worker who works is paid one extra day's wage per day worked. Where the contract is silent, the worker's consent is needed.

In many hotels, the public holiday rota is written and posted before anyone checks the employment contracts for the consent it requires. The hotel is full, the desk is short, and the real question is not whether the day is a holiday but who agreed to work it, at what rate, and where that agreement sits in the records. After reading this article you will be able to label each date correctly, know when consent is required, keep the holiday payment separate from overtime, and check that the rota, the time sheet and the payroll line tell the same story.

Which days count as national and general holidays in Türkiye?#

Law No. 2429 lists them, and several of them begin at 13:00 on the day before. The list is fixed by law, not by the hotel's calendar. The current text of Law No. 2429 on the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (opens in a new tab) is the reference to roster from.

The half days: 28 October and the arefe#

The half day is a part day, not a lesser day. The morning of 28 October and the morning of each arefe, the eve day before a religious holiday, are ordinary working time, and the holiday period starts at 13:00. Religious holidays follow a lunar calendar, so their Gregorian dates move each year. Take the official calendar for the year you are rostering, not last year's file.

Why the 13:00 boundary matters for a rota#

Because one calendar date can hold two day types, the rota and the time sheet must mark the boundary, not the whole date. A shift that runs from 09:00 to 21:00 on 28 October contains ordinary hours and holiday hours, and the pay record has to show which is which. Treating the whole date as one type hides the boundary and makes the pay record hard to defend.

Does a hotel need the worker's consent to work on a bayram?#

It depends on the contract. Article 44 leaves the decision to the collective labour agreement or the employment contracts, and where the contracts have no provision, the worker's consent is needed, according to the current text of Law No. 4857 (opens in a new tab).

Article 44 leaves the decision to the collective labour agreement or the employment contracts. Where the contracts have no provision, the worker's consent is needed. A contract that says nothing is not permission. Silence is exactly the situation Article 44 addresses, and it points to consent.

Whether a general clause about extra work covers national and general holidays is a contract-reading question, not a payroll assumption. Have your adviser read the actual wording. In practice, consent is per day: a short written request naming the date and the shift, answered in writing, is the record that survives an inspection or a later dispute. Seasonal and new hires need the same treatment as long-serving staff; a signed contract from June does not answer the question for December.

Consent does not change the money. Article 44 closes by saying wages for these days are paid under Article 47, so the payment rule applies whether or not the day was agreed in advance.

For the wider vocabulary of Turkish labour law as it applies to hotels, including puantaj, the time sheet, and denkleştirme, the balancing of hours, see labour law terms for hotel employers.

How much is paid for work on a national or general holiday?#

Two amounts, not one. The worker who does not work is paid that day's wage in full, and the worker who works is also paid one day's wage for each day worked.

Article 47 separates the two amounts: the day's wage, which the worker receives whether or not the day is worked, and one day's wage for each day actually worked on a national or general holiday. Article 49 adds the same for monthly-paid workers: a monthly salary does not settle the extra day's wage when the worker works on those days. In percentage-method (yüzde usulü) workplaces, where service charge distribution replaces part of the wage structure, the employer pays these holiday wages; the method changes who carries the cost, not whether it is owed.

Why the holiday payment and overtime are different lines#

The extra payment is not overtime. Overtime is a different article, a different consent rule and a different annual limit, and merging the two on one payslip line makes the record indefensible. If you want the full picture on overtime consent, the cap on overtime hours and time off in lieu, read overtime in hotels.

How the daily wage is derived from a monthly salary, and which premiums enter the base, is a payroll question for your accountant, not a number to copy from a blog. The 13:00 boundary on a half day means the same date can hold ordinary hours and holiday hours; the pay record has to show which is which.

How is the weekly rest day different from a public holiday?#

The weekly rest day is earned by working the days before it and is at least 24 uninterrupted hours in each seven-day period, paid in full without work. A national or general holiday comes from the calendar, not from hours worked.

Article 46 says a worker who has worked the working days set under Article 63 before the rest day gets at least 24 hours' uninterrupted rest in each seven-day period, and the employer pays that day's full wage without work. Recent amendments to the Labor Law allow accommodation facilities holding a Ministry of Culture and Tourism tourism operation certificate to defer the earned weekly rest: at the worker's written request or with written consent, it may be given within the days after the day it was earned. Confirm the exact statute number, the article and the permitted window with your legal adviser before you rely on it.

The four-day window and what it does to overtime#

The consequence of that deferral: work done on the earned rest day, up to the daily normal working time, then does not count as overtime. The worker may withdraw consent by giving the employer 30 days' written notice, so the consent file has to be kept current, not filed once and forgotten. The deferral is a written-consent mechanism, not a scheduling habit; without the paper, a rest day moved by four days has no basis. In percentage-method workplaces the employer pays the weekly rest wage.

Keep holiday work and rest-day work on separate payroll lines, because the pay rules and the overtime consequence differ. For how weekly working time and the balancing period (denkleştirme) work, see working hours in hotels.

What happens when a holiday falls on a rest day or inside a balanced week?#

The articles cited here do not set a single combined formula. The holiday rule attaches to the calendar date and the rest-day rule attaches to the seven-day cycle, so the honest answer is to keep the two records separate and confirm the combined treatment with your accountant or legal adviser.

The two entitlements can point at the same date: a worker may be due a holiday payment under Article 47 and a weekly rest under Article 46 in the same week. Where they overlap, the payroll must name which entitlement is being paid and why. One lump line hides the reasoning and cannot be defended a year later.

A balanced week (denkleştirme) changes how normal working time is distributed; it does not remove the calendar date from Law No. 2429. Do not assume the balance absorbs the holiday. Whether holiday hours count toward the annual overtime limit is not answered by the articles quoted here; ask your adviser once and write the answer down.

Why a written internal rule beats a case-by-case decision#

Write the answer into a short internal policy: which line carries which payment, who signs the consent, and who checks the reconciliation before payroll closes. Reuse that policy for every bayram instead of re-deciding under time pressure each time.

An illustrative calculation with placeholder figures#

The example below uses invented numbers to show the shape of the record, not a rate to copy. Every figure is a placeholder.

For example, take a monthly-paid front desk worker with a hypothetical daily wage of 1,000 units who works on 29 October. The 1,000 is a placeholder, not a market wage. Under Articles 47 and 49, that day carries the day's wage of 1,000 plus one day's wage of 1,000 for the day worked, so the holiday line shows 2,000 units before any other element.

If the same worker also worked on the earned weekly rest day inside the four-day window, with written consent, the hours up to the daily normal working time do not count as overtime under Article 46 as amended by Law No. 7553. The example deliberately stops there: the derivation of the daily wage, premium rates and any collective agreement terms change the result, and only your accountant can fix those.

What the example does prove is structural: one date can produce two or three separate payroll lines, and each needs its own label. Never present a placeholder as a rate the reader can apply.

How do the rota, the time sheet and the payroll line stay in agreement?#

By setting the day type once, at the rota, and carrying that same label through the time sheet, the consent file and the payroll line without renaming it.

The rota names the day type: national or general holiday, half day from 13:00, earned weekly rest, or ordinary working day. The puantaj records hours worked against that day type, including the 13:00 boundary on 28 October and on each arefe. The payroll line names the entitlement in words: day's wage, Article 47 day, weekly rest wage, overtime. A code alone is not a record a manager can defend.

The consent document is filed with the rota for that period, not in a separate folder that nobody opens at payroll time. Department heads sign their own section of the puantaj; the person who wrote the rota should not be the only person who checks it. Retention periods for these records sit outside this article; confirm them with your accountant or legal adviser.

A pre-payroll check for holiday weeks#

For how to build the rota fairly across desk, floors and nights in the first place, see hotel shift planning.

What to do next#

Before the next bayram rota goes up, check three things in this order: what the employment contract actually says about working national and general holidays, whether a written consent record exists where the contract is silent, and whether the rota, the puantaj and the payroll line all name the same entitlement for the same date. The parts fit together as one chain: Law No. 2429 fixes the days, Article 44 fixes who agreed, Articles 46 and 47 fix what is paid, and the three records are what prove the chain was followed. Confirm your own case, dates and any penalties with an accountant or legal adviser.