Paid Leave on a Work-Study Contract: How Many Days, When to Book Them, and What Happens to Training-Centre Weeks

The first shock of a work-study programme is neither the 6:30 a.m. alarm nor the spreadsheets. It's the month of October, when your former classmates post their half-term holiday photos and you're sitting at your desk. The second shock hits around June, when you realise you've taken three days off since September and still have 22 days to burn before the contract ends.

A work-study student doesn't get school holidays. They get paid leave, exactly like any other employee in their company, plus two or three specific entitlements almost nobody ever claims because nobody knows they exist. And on top of that, there's a training calendar that has to slot into everything else.

Here's how it actually works, updated for the 2026 academic year.

The basic principle: you're an employee, not a student

Whether you're on an apprenticeship contract or a professionalisation contract, you hold an employment contract. Article L. 3141-3 of the French Labour Code therefore entitles you to 2.5 working days of leave per month of actual work, i.e. 30 "jours ouvrables" — or 25 "jours ouvrés" — for a full year. Five weeks, no more, no less.

Two consequences that many work-study students discover far too late:

• The training centre's holidays are not holidays. If your training centre closes for a week in February and you have no classes, you're expected at the company. Unless your work-study calendar says otherwise in writing, those weeks flip over into working time.
• Leave days are requested, not simply taken. Like any employee, you must submit a request and obtain your employer's approval; they set the dates according to operational requirements and company rules.

Watch out for the most common confusion: "jours ouvrables" (Monday to Saturday, 6 days a week) versus "jours ouvrés" (Monday to Friday, 5 days). 30 jours ouvrables = 25 jours ouvrés = 5 weeks. Check which basis your payslip uses — it's printed at the bottom right in the leave counter.

The reference period, the detail that changes everything

Historically, leave entitlement accrues from 1 June to 31 May of the following year (the "reference period"), and is often taken between 1 June and the following 31 May. Many companies have aligned this period with the calendar year or with their financial year — a company-level or industry-level agreement can provide for this.

Why does this matter so much to you? Because a work-study contract generally starts in September. If your company uses the classic reference year, you arrive on 1 September 2026 with zero days accrued and build up 2.5 per month. By the end of December, you'll have 10 jours ouvrables (roughly 8 jours ouvrés) — enough to cover Christmas week, provided the company agrees to let you take leave in advance.

Since the reform introduced by the law of 22 April 2024, the rule has in fact been clarified: leave can be taken from the moment you're hired, without waiting for a new period to open, as soon as it has been accrued. Just check that your employer isn't applying a more restrictive practice inherited from the old rules.

The table you should have in front of you before booking your dates

Situation	What you're entitled to	Legal basis
Annual paid leave	2.5 jours ouvrables per month worked, i.e. 30 jours ouvrables per year	Labour Code, art. L. 3141-3
Work-study student under 21 on 30 April	Up to 30 jours ouvrables of leave, even without having worked the full year (unaccrued days are unpaid)	Labour Code, art. L. 3141-8
Apprentice preparing for an exam	5 jours ouvrables of additional paid leave in the month before the exams	Labour Code, art. L. 6222-35
Young parent under 21	2 extra jours ouvrables per dependent child	Labour Code, art. L. 3141-8
Family events (marriage, birth, bereavement)	Specific leave, not deducted from paid leave	Labour Code, art. L. 3142-1

The 5 days of revision leave: the great forgotten entitlement

This is probably the most overlooked right in the entire apprentice status. Article L. 6222-35 of the Labour Code provides that the apprentice is entitled, for direct preparation for the exams, to five jours ouvrables of additional leave, to be taken in the month preceding the exams. Those five days are paid normally and are not deducted from your paid leave. They come on top of time spent at the training centre.

Three points that will save you unpleasant surprises:

1. The right is reserved for apprentices. On a professionalisation contract there is no equivalent provision in the Labour Code: check your collective bargaining agreement, as several industries (Syntec, metallurgy, banking) provide exam preparation schemes.
2. You have to request this leave, ideally in writing, stating the date of your exams. Many employers have no idea it exists; quoting the article reference ends the discussion quickly.
3. These days are meant for revision, not for travelling. The exam day itself is already covered by your training time.

You may as well use them properly: blocking out five days in a study room or a library, with a printed revision schedule, a set of index cards for definitions and a desk timer for 50-minute sessions, produces far more than a week of passive re-reading. It's also the moment to work through past papers under exam conditions, stopwatch running.

When to book leave when you alternate between the training centre and the company

This is where work-study makes everything complicated. Your "free" week doesn't exist: you're either at the company or in training, and one can't be swapped for the other.

Rule number one: never book leave during a training-centre period. Attendance in training is a contractual obligation, and an unjustified absence can lead to a formal warning, or even a report to your employer and your OPCO (skills operator). Your leave must be booked exclusively on days you would otherwise have worked at the company.

Rule number two: the work-study calendar comes out before your holiday dates. Get hold of it as soon as the training centre publishes it — often in June or July — and lay it next to your company's shutdown calendar. The overlapping zones jump out immediately.

Rule number three: anticipate blocked periods. Many companies ban leave at the end of the financial year, during stocktaking, or in peak season. A work-study student in retail hoping to book the second half of December will hit a brick wall.

A paper week-to-view diary, in which you colour-code training weeks in one shade and company weeks in another at the start of the year, remains the most effective tool for spotting the windows that are genuinely available. Some students prefer a wipe-clean wall planner pinned above the desk: the key is that the training calendar and the company calendar are physically superimposed somewhere.

The case of the company's annual shutdown

If your employer closes for three weeks in August, they can require you to book your leave during that period (they must announce it at least two months in advance, and the notice must be displayed visibly on the premises). Two scenarios:

• You have enough accrued days: they're deducted and you're paid as normal.
• You don't have enough — the classic case with a contract starting in January or March: you may end up on unpaid leave for the missing days. In that case, ask France Travail about the partial unemployment allowance for unaccrued paid leave, a little-known scheme that can partly offset the loss of income.

Illness, absences, lateness: what really happens

Sick leave during a company week

You fall under the general social security scheme: the medical certificate must reach your employer within 48 hours, and your health insurance fund according to the instructions on the form. Social security daily allowances are subject to eligibility conditions that a work-study student generally meets (sufficient hours worked or contributions paid) — the simulator and up-to-date conditions are set out on ameli.fr. Many collective agreements also provide for continued salary payment by the employer after a minimum length of service.

Sick leave during a training-centre week

This is the most frequently asked question, and the answer is surprising: yes, you still have to send in a medical certificate. You are in working time as far as the contract is concerned, even sitting in a classroom. The certificate goes to the employer, with a copy to the training centre to justify the absence from training. Failing to tell the centre is the classic mistake: unjustified absences pile up in your file and can cause problems when it comes to validating your qualification, as some certifications require a minimum attendance rate.

Absences for personal reasons

A medical appointment, a house move, a driving test: these are not leave entitlements. Three options, in order of preference:

1. Book a half-day or a full day of paid leave — the cleanest solution.
2. Ask for time off in lieu, if the company operates overtime or flexitime.
3. Request unpaid authorised absence, formalised in writing.

The common denominator: you ask beforehand. An absence reported on the morning itself invariably ends in a salary deduction, and leaves a far more lasting mark than a request made a fortnight in advance.

A useful special case: the day of the theory or practical driving test does not entitle you to paid absence, but the €500 driving licence grant for apprentices can still be combined with regional grants. You apply for it through your training centre.

What's left at the end of the contract: compensatory pay

If your contract comes to an end — expiry of a fixed-term apprenticeship or professionalisation contract, or early termination — and you haven't used up your leave, your employer must pay you compensation for untaken paid leave. It appears on your final settlement statement and is calculated using whichever of the following is more favourable:

• the one-tenth rule: 10% of the total gross pay received during the reference period;
• the maintained-salary rule: what you would have received had you taken the leave.

Always check this line. It's the most common payroll error at the end of work-study contracts, particularly when the contract finishes in August and the counter was reset to zero on 31 May. Keep your payslips: the leave counter appears on them month by month, and a simple expanding file folder dedicated to contract paperwork will spare you digging through your emails three years later, when putting together a pension file or challenging a final balance.

The strategy that works: spread it out, don't stockpile

Over twelve months, the classic mistake is saving everything for the summer, then discovering in May that you have to take 20 days in six weeks, right in the middle of exams and your dissertation deadline. Here's a distribution that works, tried and tested by plenty of work-study students:

Period	Days to book	Why
End of December	3 to 5 working days	Activity often slows, company sometimes closed
February–March	2 to 3 days	A break just as fatigue sets in
April–May	0 to 2 days	Keep a margin for revision and your dissertation
July–August	10 to 15 days	The real rest block, before the second year

Two habits that save time:

• Ask in writing, even if the company has an HR tool. A summary email creates a record in the event of a dispute over dates.
• Tell your supervisor before validating anything in the software. A request that arrives as a notification when you've never mentioned it ends in a refusal one time out of two, purely for relationship reasons.

And for those doing two consecutive years: the counter is not reset between the first and second year if it's a single contract. Check the "congés N-1" (previous year's leave) line on your June payslip — carried-over days appear there, and they often expire on the following 31 May.

The three questions we're asked most

"Can my employer refuse my leave?" Yes, they set the dates in line with company rules and operational requirements. However, they cannot prevent you from taking at least 12 consecutive jours ouvrables between 1 May and 31 October, unless you agree otherwise.

"Can I book leave during my 45-day period?" Nothing legally forbids it. In practice, it's a very bad idea: that period exists precisely so that you and your employer can assess the working relationship, and leave days don't count towards the 45 days of practical training — you're only delaying the end of the period.

"Am I entitled to RTT (working-time reduction days)?" Only if the company grants them to its employees under its working-time arrangement agreement, and under the same conditions. An apprentice isn't excluded from the scheme: put the question to HR, not to the training centre.

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In short: five weeks like everyone else, five extra revision days if you're an apprentice, no school holidays, and a calendar to put on the table as soon as you sign. The work-study students who finish the year without burning out are rarely the ones who worked less — they're the ones who booked their dates in September, while the others were waiting to "see how it goes".

Sources: French Labour Code (articles L. 3141-3, L. 3141-8, L. 6222-35, L. 3142-1), service-public.fr, ameli.fr, Ministry of Labour. Always check your collective bargaining agreement, which may be more favourable.

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