Leave Letter and Application: Format, Templates, Notice

Check what you are entitled to first

There is a difference between asking a favour and exercising a right, and it changes how you write the letter.

• United States. The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for your own serious health condition, a new child, or to care for a spouse, parent, or child under 18, or 18 and over and unable to care for themselves because of a disability, who has a serious health condition. Siblings, grandparents, healthy adult children and parents-in-law do not count, unless that person stood in the role of a parent to you in childhood. Two extensions sit on top: 26 workweeks in a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember who is your spouse, child, parent or next of kin, and leave for a qualifying exigency, such as childcare or legal arrangements, when your spouse, child or parent is called to covered active duty. Where both spouses work for the same employer, the entitlement for a new child, for adoption or foster placement, and for caring for a parent can be capped at 12 weeks between them rather than 12 each.
• Are you actually eligible? Three tests, and tenure alone answers none of them. You need 12 months with the employer, which do not have to be consecutive, though service before a break of seven years or more usually does not count unless the break was military service or a written agreement says otherwise. You need 1,250 hours in the 12 months before the leave starts, counting hours you actually worked, so paid holiday, vacation and previous leave do not help you reach it: a long-serving part-timer can fail this outright. And you need a worksite where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles. Public agencies and all elementary and secondary schools are covered employers whatever their size, so that last figure tests your worksite rather than whether your employer is in scope. Airline flight crew have a separate hours test.
• FMLA is not the only US law involved. There is no federal right to paid vacation or paid sick leave, but that does not leave you with only the handbook. Military service carries reemployment rights, federal law protects you from being fired for jury service, and unpaid leave can be required as a disability accommodation. On top of that, 18 states and the District of Columbia require paid sick leave, and 13 states plus DC run paid family and medical leave programmes, several covering smaller employers or more relatives than FMLA does. Check federal law, your state law, and the policy, in that order.
• Great Britain: England, Wales and Scotland. Almost every worker has 5.6 weeks of paid statutory annual leave, capped at 28 days, and your employer may count bank holidays inside that rather than on top. If you work irregular hours or only part of the year, the calculation changed for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024: you accrue 12.07 percent of the hours you actually work in each pay period instead of a fixed number of days. Unpaid parental leave gives 18 weeks for each child up to that child's 18th birthday, and no more than four weeks a year for each child unless your employer agrees otherwise, which is the point most summaries get wrong: a parent of two gets four weeks a year each, not four in total. It became a day-one right on 6 April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025. It is an employee right rather than a worker right, so agency workers, contractors and the self-employed are out, you need to be on the birth or adoption certificate or hold parental responsibility, and it has to be taken in whole weeks unless the employer agrees or the child is disabled. Carer's leave gives a week of unpaid leave per rolling 12 months for a dependant with long-term care needs. Time off for dependants gives a reasonable amount of time for a genuine emergency, with no fixed number of days, no right to be paid for it, and no cover for anything you knew about in advance.
• Northern Ireland is a separate jurisdiction. The Employment Rights Act 2025 does not extend there, so the day-one parental leave change did not happen in Northern Ireland and the old qualifying period still applies. Northern Ireland also did not adopt the irregular-hours accrual method, so part-year workers there still get a proportion of the full 5.6 weeks. Check the Northern Ireland position rather than assuming the Great Britain one.
• India. Since 21 November 2025 the four labour codes have been operative, which changed the answer here. The occupational safety code sets a central floor for earned leave in establishments with 10 or more workers: one day of leave for every 20 days worked, once you have put in 180 days in the calendar year. Casual leave and sick leave still come from your state's Shops and Establishments Act and your contract, so those numbers differ by state and employer. Check your appointment letter, which the same code now requires your employer to issue in writing.
• Kenya and much of East and West Africa. These are national statutes rather than a patchwork. Kenya's Employment Act 2007 gives not less than 21 working days of annual leave with full pay after every twelve consecutive months of service, and sick leave of not less than seven days on full pay followed by seven on half pay in each twelve-month period. Look up your own act before you assume your employer's handbook is the ceiling.

Name the category in your letter. "I am requesting five days of earned leave" or "I am requesting FMLA leave" tells HR which process to run and which balance to draw from. For a first FMLA request you do not have to say the letters out loud; the employer has to work it out from what you tell them. For a repeat of leave they have already granted for the same reason, you do have to reference it, so say it plainly and keep the copy.

How much notice

Under FMLA you must give at least 30 days' notice when you know at least 30 days ahead, such as a scheduled surgery or an expected birth. When you find out later than that, or the need is not foreseeable at all, the standard is as soon as practicable, and you still have to follow your employer's usual procedure for reporting an absence unless something unusual stops you. Missing the deadline does not normally destroy the entitlement: the employer may delay the start of FMLA cover by up to 30 days, or by however long you were late. Your employer can ask for medical certification and must give you at least 15 calendar days to produce it, so start that conversation with your doctor early rather than after the request is refused.

In Great Britain the statutory leaves carry their own deadlines. Unpaid parental leave needs at least 21 days' notice before the block starts, and the employer can postpone it by up to six months where the business would be unduly disrupted, must say so in writing within seven days with alternative dates, and cannot postpone leave taken straight after a birth or adoption placement. Carer's leave needs at least three days' notice for half a day or a day, and otherwise twice the length of the leave you are asking for. For ordinary annual leave a workplace agreement usually sets the notice; where none does, the statutory default is notice of twice the length of the leave, and the employer can serve a counter-notice of the same length as the leave telling you not to take particular days.

For everything discretionary, your employer's policy sets the notice, commonly two weeks to a month for anything longer than a day or two, and busy periods may be blocked out entirely. In a genuine emergency, call first and follow with the letter the same day so the record exists.

What to put in the letter

• The type of leave and the dates. First line, including the date you will return. "From Monday 10 August to Friday 21 August, returning Monday 24 August" leaves nothing to interpret.
• A short reason. One line. You are not required to hand over your medical history; "for a planned medical procedure" is enough for most policies.
• Your cover plan. Who is picking up what, what you will finish first, and what is documented. Offering this unasked is what turns a request into an easy yes.
• Whether you are reachable, and how. It is fine to say you will be offline.
• Anything you are attaching, such as a medical certificate, and a request for written confirmation.

Planned leave

An earned-leave application, written to an Indian employer.

Medical leave under FMLA

FMLA covers employees working in the United States, the District of Columbia and the US territories. If you are employed elsewhere, name your local category instead of this one. Notice the eligibility sentence: it answers all three tests rather than resting on length of service.

Emergency leave, written at short notice

Call first, using whatever your employer's absence procedure requires, then send this so the dates are on record.

The template

Type in your own details, and keep the dates where they are in the first line. The blank form and the three letters above are together in the .docx.

After you send it

• Get the approval in writing before you book anything you cannot refund.
• Return the certification inside the window. Under FMLA you get at least 15 calendar days from the employer's request, and the employer has to tell you in writing what happens if you do not return it. If the form comes back incomplete, you must be given a further seven calendar days to fix it before the leave can be refused. Being late is excused where you were making diligent, good faith efforts and returning it in time was not practicable.
• Check what happens to pay. FMLA leave is unpaid by default. You can choose, or your employer can require, that accrued paid leave run at the same time, with one large exception: while you are being paid by a state paid family leave programme, an employer disability plan, or workers compensation, neither side can force your vacation or sick balance to run concurrently. You can both agree to top up.
• Confirm your return date in writing if it moves, rather than letting the original date pass.
• If you decide not to come back, resign properly rather than extending leave indefinitely: the resignation letter covers the notice you owe.

Your entitlement is usually written into the appointment letter you were given when you joined, which is the first place to look for your leave categories. For spacing and layout, see formal letter formats.

Sources

• US Family and Medical Leave Act and 29 CFR part 825: 12 workweeks and the 26-week military caregiver entitlement; qualifying exigency leave; spouses at the same employer aggregated for a new child, placement and parent care (825.201(b)); eligibility of 12 months' employment with the seven-year lookback, 1,250 hours of service counted under FLSA principles, and 50 employees within 75 miles (825.110); notice of 30 days where the need is foreseeable that far ahead, otherwise as soon as practicable, with the employer's usual procedures still applying (825.302, 825.303) and delay of coverage as the sanction (825.304); certification with at least 15 calendar days, written notice of the consequences, and seven calendar days to cure a deficiency (825.305); restoration to the same or an equivalent job (825.214, Fact Sheet 28A), no greater right than continued employment (825.216), and the key employee exception (825.217 to 825.219); no forced substitution of paid leave while disability or workers compensation benefits are paid (825.207(d)), extended to state paid family leave by DOL opinion letter FMLA2025-01-A.
• US beyond FMLA: no federal paid vacation or paid sick leave requirement; USERRA reemployment rights for uniformed service; 28 USC 1875 on jury service; ADA leave as a reasonable accommodation; DOL Women's Bureau counts of state paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave programmes.
• Great Britain: 5.6 weeks statutory paid annual leave capped at 28 days, bank holidays includable, and 12.07 percent accrual for irregular-hours and part-year workers for leave years from 1 April 2024; unpaid parental leave of 18 weeks per child to the child's 18th birthday, four weeks a year per child, a day-one employee right from 6 April 2026 under section 15 of the Employment Rights Act 2025, whole weeks unless agreed or the child is disabled, 21 days' notice, employer postponement of up to six months on written notice within seven days but not straight after a birth or adoption; Carer's Leave Regulations 2024 for the week of leave and its notice formula; time off for dependants, reasonable time, unpaid, employees only, emergencies only; Working Time Regulations 1998 regulation 15 for annual leave notice and counter-notice.
• Northern Ireland: the Employment Rights Act 2025 does not extend there, so the parental leave qualifying period and the part-year holiday calculation both differ from Great Britain.
• India: the labour codes operative since 21 November 2025; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 for earned leave of one day per 20 days worked after 180 days in the year in establishments with 10 or more workers, and the compulsory written appointment letter; casual and sick leave under state Shops and Establishments Acts.
• Kenya: Employment Act 2007 sections 28 and 30, annual leave of not less than 21 working days and sick leave of seven days on full pay then seven on half pay per twelve months of service.

This page is general information about requesting leave, not legal or employment advice. Entitlements are jurisdiction-specific and change; check the rules where you work before you rely on them.