Military Leave: What It Is and How It Works
Regular military leave is any paid leave taken for personal reasons, including vacations, family care, errands or any other purpose. Regular leave is used on workdays and also any time the service member is leaving the vicinity of their duty station, as defined by their command, on a weekend or holiday.
You’ve earned it – Use your leave or lose it
Leave time continues to add up as earned, but there is a limit to how much leave can be carried over from one fiscal year to another. Typically, if you have accrued more than two months of unused leave, you lose any amount that exceeds 60 days at the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.
A service member may be authorized to carry over more than 60 days of leave for a period of time. This is called a special leave accrual and is usually authorized due to deployment to certain areas of the world, assignment to certain designated units or operational requirements that prevent the service member from taking leave.
Military Leave: What It Is and How It Works
As part of the military pay and benefits package, military service members earn 30 days of paid leave per year. You start at zero and for every month of military service, 2.5 days of leave get added to your leave account. It doesn’t stop, but the most you can carry over from one fiscal year to the next fiscal year is 60 days, except in certain, very limited situations where you can carry over more.
Reserve component members, including National Guard, also accrue leave at the rate of 2.5 days for each month that they are on active-duty orders. Reserve components have some special rules for how and when they can use their leave.
Service members are expected to use leave for any workday that they will not be available for work, as required by their command. They are also expected to use leave for any day that they leave the vicinity of their duty station, as defined by their command.
The different kinds of military leave policy
EMERGENCY LEAVE
Emergency leave is leave that is taken in response to a family or other emergency situation. Emergency leave is usually authorized very quickly. Emergency leave is paid leave that is chargeable against your leave balance.
CONVALESCENT LEAVE
Convalescent leave is a non-chargeable absence from duty granted to expedite a military member’s return to full duty after illness, injury or childbirth, typically for 30 days or less. Convalescent leave is directed and approved by a doctor and your commander. It is paid leave that is not charged to your leave balance.
EXPANDED PARENTAL LEAVE
Expanded parental leave is non-chargeable leave granted to eligible service members, both birth parents and non-birth parents, following the birth of a child of the service member, the adoption of a minor child by the service member or the placement of a minor child with the service member for adoption or long-term foster care in order to care for the child. Eligible service members are authorized 12 weeks of parental leave during the one year period beginning on the date of the qualifying event. The 12 weeks of parental leave is in addition to any convalescent leave that may be authorized for the recovery of the birth parent from giving birth.
RESERVE COMPONENT MATERNITY LEAVE
Reserve component maternity leave (RCML) is an authorized absence of an eligible reserve component member from inactive duty training (IDT) following childbirth at which they would otherwise be required to attend. RCML is comprised of up to 12 IDT periods of authorized absence within one year following the date of the qualifying birth event. While absent, eligible reserve component members will be entitled to receive the equivalent inactive duty pay, special and incentive pays(s), and bonuses and crediting of retirement points that they would have otherwise been entitled to receive per IDT period had they not been absent. Talk to your pay and benefits personnel for additional guidance.
TERMINAL LEAVE
Terminal leave is regular, chargeable leave used immediately prior to separation or retirement from the military. Taking terminal leave lets you use accrued leave in lieu of selling the leave. Terminal leave is granted at the discretion of your command.
When can you take leave?
Service members may request leave at any time. Approval will be at the discretion of the command, based upon a wide variety of factors including operational requirements.
Some commands may have specified times when all or portions of the command can take leave at the same time. This is sometimes referred to as “block leave” and may happen before or after a deployment or during a holiday period. Commonly, block leave time is allowed during the summer and Christmas holidays, and before and after deployments.
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