I guess that depends on the country. Here in Austria it's the norm to take all 5 weeks of holidays you get each year. If you don't take all of them you can eith

I guess that depends on the country. Here in Austria it's the norm to take all 5 weeks of holidays you get each year. If you don't take all of them you can either roll them over to the next year or have your unused days "paid for" by the employeer. In addition, unused holidays don't really expire. So if you or your employeer terminates the contract, you have the right to be paid for _all_ unused holidays that accumulated during the period of the contract. That's the reason why most employees force you to really take all of your 5 weeks each year. Edit: Seems that I was wrong and that unused holidays expire after a few years. Still, each employer I've worked for so far "forced" its employees to really take their 5 weeks of vacation.