DATE: Friday, September 12, 2025
Employees and supervisors are mutually responsible for planning and scheduling the use of annual leave throughout the leave year. Employees should request annual leave in a timely manner, and supervisors should provide timely responses to employees’ requests.
Key Dates for Leave Year 2025
| November 29, 2025: | Deadline to schedule “use or lose” annual leave. You must request it in writing and have it approved by your supervisor no later than November 29, 2025. You must follow your office procedures to request annual leave. |
| January 10, 2026: | Deadline to use all your projected “use or lose” annual leave. |
Forfeiting "Use or Lose" Leave
Forfeited leave is generally not eligible for restoration. However, there are exceptions for cases involving public business exigencies, administrative errors, or employee illness.
Requesting Restoration of Forfeited Leave
If your forfeited leave falls under the exceptions for restoration, IBC HR Operations will provide instructions on how to request its restoration after the 2025 leave year has ended.
OPM Fact Sheet: Leave Year Beginning and Ending Dates
Guidance on Scheduling and Use of Annual Leave to Prevent Forfeiture
Ultimately, supervisors are responsible for the effective planning, coordination, and approval of their employees’ annual leave throughout the leave year. This ensures that both the mission of the organization and the personal needs of employees are met, while also preventing situations where employees approach the end of the leave year with a significant amount of annual leave that must be used or forfeited.
While the final date to schedule leave specifically applies to cases involving the potential forfeiture and restoration of annual leave, employees are encouraged to plan and take annual leave throughout the leave year. Waiting until the end of the leave year to schedule or take annual leave may result in forfeiture.
Employees who choose not to schedule or use annual leave in such a way as to avoid forfeiture are not entitled to have the forfeited leave restored for later use.
Employees with restored annual leave hours under 5 USC 6304(d) from previous leave years should keep in mind that there is a 2-year time limit on restored annual leave. To use your restored annual leave hours, follow your office procedures for requesting the use and approval of those hours. The approved use of restored annual leave may then be coded on your timecard with pay code 081. Restored annual leave may be used in 15-minute increments.
Please note, the use of regular compensatory time and compensatory time for travel to avoid forfeiture is not an exigency of public service that later permits the restoration of “use or lose” annual leave not taken. Employees on approved leave, such as Paid Parental Leave, credit hours, etc., will also not serve as reasons to have forfeited annual leave restored.
Voluntary Leave Transfer Program (VLTP)
If you find that you have “use or lose” annual leave that you will not be able to use this leave year and would like to donate to an employee that can use it, the Voluntary Leave Transfer Program (VLTP) assists individual employees experiencing a personal or family medical emergency that do not have any available leave. Please contact Blake_Dodge@ibc.doi.gov to donate to a recipient in the VLTP.
Resources
- Leave Year Beginning and Ending Dates
- Leave Administration Fact Sheets
- Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Fact Sheet
Questions
- If you would like to discuss these topics, or other benefits related questions, please reach out to your servicing HR Representative or contact Blake_Dodge@ibc.doi.gov, Chief of Employee Benefits, at 303-969-7085.