Michelle Bailey | Work
At the end of my second year at my first salaried job, I lost four vacation days. I didn’t decide to lose them. I just kept telling myself the next month would be calmer, and then it was December, and the days disappeared under a “use it or lose it” policy I had never really read. I felt noble about it at the time. Now I think of it as handing my employer about $1,000 for nothing. If you have unused PTO sitting in your account right now, the first official week of summer is the right moment to put it on the calendar.
Unused PTO is part of your pay, so leaving it is a pay cut
Paid time off is compensation, the same as your salary and your 401(k) match. When you don’t use it and it expires, you’ve worked days you were paid not to work. Skipping vacation can feel like dedication, but in practice it’s a discount you’re giving your company.
Here’s the math with round numbers. Say you earn $65,000 a year. A full-time year has about 260 workdays (52 weeks times 5 days), so each workday is worth $65,000 divided by 260, or $250. If you leave four days on the table at the end of the year, like I did, that’s $1,000 of compensation you earned and never collected. Leave a full week and it’s $1,250.
Now look at the full value. In March 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that private industry workers averaged 15 paid vacation days after five years of service, 10 days after one year, and 20 days after 20 years. At $250 a day, 15 days is $3,750 of your pay. You’d notice if your paycheck came up $3,750 short. You should notice when your vacation balance does.
Almost half of workers leave time off unused
If you’re behind on vacation, you have a lot of company. Pew Research Center found in 2023 that 46% of U.S. workers who get paid time off take less than their employer offers. The most common reasons among those workers were that they didn’t feel they needed more time off (52%), that they’d worry about falling behind (49%), and that they’d feel bad about co-workers taking on extra work (43%).
That last reason is where women stand out. Pew found women were more likely than men to say they’d feel bad about colleagues covering for them, 48% compared with 39%, and the gap was wider among workers under 50. I recognize that feeling exactly. Looked at plainly, though, it’s a reason to plan better coverage, and a poor reason to stay at your desk.
Your state may decide what happens to unused PTO
Most articles about using your vacation stop at “you deserve a break.” The part I wish someone had told me at 24 is that the rules about losing your days vary a lot by state, and they’re worth five minutes of reading.
California is the clearest example. The state’s Labor Commissioner says in its vacation FAQ that a “use it or lose it” policy is illegal under California law. Employers there can set a cap on how much vacation you can accrue, but they have to give you a reasonable chance to use it first, and when you leave a job, earned and unused vacation must be paid out at your final rate of pay in your final paycheck.
Many other states leave much more of this to your employer’s written policy, which means your handbook may decide whether unused days roll over, get capped, or vanish. So find the actual PTO policy and read three things: whether days roll over, whether there’s a cap, and whether unused time is paid out when you leave. If you’re in a use-it-or-lose-it workplace, the deadline matters more than you think.
Treat unused PTO like money you’re about to lose
Once you see your PTO balance as dollars, it gets much easier to act on. I keep a note in my phone with my balance converted to money. “Eight days, $2,000” is a lot harder to ignore than “eight days.”
When I talk to friends who negotiate their own salaries, I’m always struck by how hard they push for a $3,000 raise and then quietly forfeit days worth almost that much. If you’ve read my guide on how to negotiate your salary, think of this as the other half of it: you have to actually collect the compensation you negotiated. And if you’re tracking whether your raises are keeping pace, your vacation days belong in that same total compensation picture.
Plan coverage so you can actually log off
The guilt about co-workers is real, so deal with it directly instead of letting it keep you home. A couple of weeks before you leave, write a short handoff note: what’s in progress, who’s covering what, and what can wait until you’re back. Offer to cover for the colleague who’s covering for you when it’s their turn. That turns the favor into a trade, which feels a lot better than an imposition.
Then put an end date on your availability. I set an out-of-office message that names the person covering for me and the day I’ll be back, and I delete email from my phone for the week. I used to think I’d come back to chaos. I came back to a full inbox and a team that had handled things just fine.
Book your unused PTO before the summer fills up
Summer is when everyone wants the same weeks, so the people who ask first get them. If you have unused PTO, open your calendar today and block something, even if it’s a long weekend in August with no plans yet. A day off with no destination still counts. It’s still $250 of pay you’re choosing to collect.
My rule now is that by the end of June, at least half of my annual vacation is on the calendar. I haven’t lost a day since. Look at your balance this week, multiply it by your daily rate, and decide how much of that money you’re willing to leave behind. I’m guessing the answer is none.