Employer Holiday Pay Requirements in Florida

The State of Florida has no laws that require an employer to give vacation or holiday leave to their employees, although some employers do provide these benefits as part of their labor costs, as such leave has been known to contribute to employee morale.

Under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers are not required to pay their employees for time not worked, including vacations, sick leave or holidays (federal or otherwise). Such payment is optional and between the employer and employee, or the result of some sort of collective bargaining agreement.

In the case of employers who do choose to pay their employees for holidays, most follow the standard that an employee who performs any work during the workweek in which a named holiday occurs is entitled to the holiday benefit, regardless of whether the named holiday falls on a Sunday, another day during the workweek on which the employee is not normally scheduled to work, or on the employee’s day off.

Employers who do pay their employees for holidays can restrict this somewhat, such as stipulating that employees must be employed a certain amount of time before receiving holiday pay, or that employees are required to work the day before or the day after the holiday in order to receive holiday pay.

For employees who did not work during the work week in which a recognized holiday occurs, they usually do not get paid for the holiday, unless the employee is on paid vacation or sick leave. If employers do choose to pay their employees for holidays, they must pay full-time employees a full day’s pay up to 8 hours.

Employers must also follow the pattern of any other consistently scheduled employee, such as pay a worker who normally works 6 hours those 6 hours for the holiday, or an employee who normally works 4 hours those 4 hours for the holiday. Again, this is only if the employer chooses to pay for holidays, which they are not legally required to do.

The Florida laws are all detailed on the Florida Complete Labor Law poster along with all of the most up to date federal laws.