Guide · Work · 7 min read
Annual leave, sick leave and public holidays
How much paid leave you get, when you have to take it, and maternity leave.
In plain English · by bruneilaws · not legal advice· Law as at 30 Sep 2026
On this page · 6 parts
The short answer
After 3 months with an employer, you are entitled to paid annual leave: 7 days for the first 12 months of continuous service, and one more day for every further 12 months, up to 14 days.
After 6 months with an employer, and a medical examination by a medical practitioner at the employer's expense, you are entitled to paid sick leave, as the medical practitioner certifies, of up to 14 days in each year, or up to 60 days in each year if hospitalisation is necessary. With the approval of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan, the Minister may, if the Minister thinks it is in the public interest, fix a different qualifying period by notification in the Gazette.
You are entitled to a paid holiday at your gross rate of pay on every public holiday that falls while you are employed.
Who these rules cover
The Employment Act's definition of an employee does not include a seaman, a domestic worker, or a person employed in a managerial, executive or confidential position.
Annual leave
Your annual leave is in addition to your rest days, public holidays and sick leave.
If you have served at least 3 months but have not completed 12 months of continuous service in any year, you get annual leave in proportion to the months of service you completed in that year. A fraction of less than half a day is left out, and half a day or more counts as a whole day.
Unpaid leave you asked for and your employer granted does not count towards your continuous service for annual leave.
You lose your annual leave if you are absent from work without your employer's permission or without reasonable excuse for more than 20 per cent of the working days in the months or year in which it builds up.
Your employer has to grant, and you have to take, your annual leave not later than 12 months after the end of each 12 months of continuous service. If you do not take it by then, you are no longer entitled to it.
Your employer pays your gross rate of pay for every day of annual leave. If you are dismissed for a reason other than misconduct before you have taken it, your employer pays you your gross rate of pay for every day of that leave.
Sick leave
If you are hospitalised for less than 46 days in a year, your paid sick leave for that year is no more than 14 days plus the days you were in hospital.
If the medical practitioner certifies that you are ill enough to need hospitalisation but you are not hospitalised, you are treated as hospitalised for these rules.
Sick leave that a medical practitioner has not certified, or certified sick leave you did not tell or try to tell your employer about within 48 hours of its start, is treated as absence without your employer's permission and without reasonable excuse.
For each day of sick leave, your employer pays your gross rate of pay. Where no hospitalisation is necessary, an allowance for shift work is left out.
You are not entitled to paid sick leave on a rest day or public holiday you are entitled to, on a day of paid annual leave, on a day you are not required to work under your contract, or on a day of unpaid leave granted at your request.
You are not entitled to paid sick leave for a period in which you receive compensation for temporary incapacity under the Workmen's Compensation Act.
Public holidays
You and your employer can agree to swap another day for a public holiday. If a public holiday falls on your rest day, the next working day after it is a paid holiday.
If a public holiday falls on a day you are not required to work under your contract, your employer may either pay you for it at your gross rate of pay or give you another day off instead.
You get no holiday pay for a public holiday that falls while you are on unpaid leave granted at your request.
If you are absent on the working day just before or just after a public holiday, or a day swapped for it, without your employer's prior approval or a reasonable excuse, you get no holiday pay for that public holiday.
Your employer can require you to work on a public holiday. Unless you are employed in the public service or in an essential service as the Internal Security Act defines it, you are then paid an extra day's salary at the basic rate of pay for one day's work, on top of your gross rate of pay for that day and a travelling allowance for one day if your contract provides one. Employees in the public service or an essential service are given a day or part of a day off in place of the holiday instead.
Maternity leave
Subject to section 91, a female employee is entitled to be absent from work for 4 weeks immediately before her confinement and 5 weeks immediately after it, or for a period of 9 weeks agreed with her employer that starts not earlier than 28 days before the day of her confinement and not later than that day.
A female employee who is a citizen of Brunei Darussalam or a permanent resident is entitled to be absent for 2 weeks immediately before her confinement and 13 weeks immediately after it.
For that rule, a citizen or permanent resident is one for whom contributions are payable by her employer under the Employee Trust Act, and who is lawfully or validly married under any written law. With the approval of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan, the Minister may, by order in writing, exempt any employee or class of employee from section 91(5).
The paid part of the leave, at the gross rate of pay, is the 4 weeks before and the first 4 weeks after confinement, or the first 8 weeks of an agreed 9-week period. For a citizen or permanent resident, it is the 2 weeks before and the first 11 weeks after.
A citizen or permanent resident who suffers an incomplete pregnancy at 24 weeks or more is entitled to be absent for 2 weeks immediately before her confinement and 6 weeks immediately after it, and to be paid at her gross rate of pay for 8 weeks.
A female employee who has served her employer for less than 180 days immediately before the day of her confinement is not entitled to pay for the benefit period.
At least one week before she starts her leave, she has to give her employer notice of the date she intends to start. If she does not, or does not tell her employer the date of her confinement as soon as practicable, she gets only half the payment, unless a sufficient cause prevented her.
A contract of service cannot take away her right to maternity benefit, or remove or reduce her employer's liability to pay it.
Subject to the provisions of the Part it belongs to, when a female employee is absent from work in accordance with that Part, her employer cannot lawfully give her notice of dismissal during her absence, or notice that would expire during her absence.
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