California State Employee Personal Holiday Credit: Hours, Requests, and Cash Out

A California state employee personal holiday is one paid day off, credited every July 1, that you choose when to take. You become eligible after completing six months of your initial probationary period, and from then on the credit lands in your balance each fiscal year.¹ It sits alongside the fixed state holidays in Government Code Section 19853, but you pick the date. The rules around proration, denial, and carryover are where people get tripped up.

When You Get It and Who Qualifies

Eligibility turns on one thing: finishing six months of your initial probationary period in state service. After that, you receive one personal holiday for the current fiscal year and another each July 1 going forward.¹ If you have never completed a probationary period, you are not eligible unless your bargaining unit’s Memorandum of Understanding says otherwise.²

The benefit reaches across the workforce. Full-time civil service, part-time, and permanent intermittent employees all qualify, though the last two groups receive prorated amounts. Managers, supervisors, and confidential staff follow similar rules under their own regulatory frameworks.

Unlike vacation and sick leave, which build up monthly, the personal holiday appears as a single lump-sum credit on July 1.¹ Either you have it or you have already used it.

How Many Hours the Credit Is Worth

The personal holiday is granted as a unit, not a fixed number of hours. The hours are set by your time base at the moment you actually use the holiday, not when it was credited.² One full-time unit equals eight hours of paid leave, and eight hours is the maximum anyone receives per credit.

If your time base changes, the value changes with it. An employee who drops from full-time to half-time after July 1 gets four hours when using the day, not eight. CalHR publishes a table matching each fractional time base to the corresponding hours: half-time is 4.00 hours, three-quarter time is 6.00, four-fifths is 6.40, and seven-eighths is 7.00. Smaller fractions scale down the same way, so a quarter-time employee gets 2.00 hours.²

Permanent intermittent employees use a different formula. The hours depend on how much they actually worked during the pay period in which they use the holiday. Someone who worked 71 to 90.9 hours in that pay period receives 4 hours; 151 or more hours gets the full 8. Fewer than 11 hours worked in the pay period means the personal holiday has no value at all.²

How to Request It and Check Your Balance

Your department head or designee can require five working days of advance notice before you take a personal holiday.¹ Not every department enforces this, but giving a week’s notice avoids any question about procedure.

To see your current balance, log in to Cal Employee Connect, the State Controller’s self-service portal for civil service employees. Leave balances pull from the California Leave Accounting System and run about one month behind your most recent earnings statement.³ Your pay stub also lists the balance.

The absence is recorded on Form STD 634, the Absence and Additional Time Worked Report, which covers all leave types.⁴ Many departments use electronic timekeeping systems instead, but the information submitted is the same: date, hours in the personal holiday column, and supervisor approval before the entry goes to personnel.

If Your Supervisor Denies the Request

A supervisor can deny a personal holiday based on operational needs.¹ What happens next depends on whether you are represented by a union.

For represented employees, a denied personal holiday may be rescheduled, carried over to the next fiscal year, or cashed out on an hour-by-hour basis, depending on the MOU.² For non-represented employees, the agency head or designee decides whether to allow rescheduling, carryover, or a straight-time cashout.

Government Code Section 19854 states that where an MOU reached under Section 3517.5 conflicts with the statute, the MOU controls.¹ Your bargaining unit’s contract can change the notice period, carryover rules, cashout provisions, and even eligibility conditions, so read it before relying on general descriptions of the benefit.²

If You Don’t Use It, or You Leave State Service

Carryover and cashout are remedies for a denied request, not a standing option you can exercise whenever you want to bank the day. If you simply skip using your personal holiday during the fiscal year and no denial is on record, you risk forfeiting it. Check your MOU for the specific rules.

Separation raises a different question. California’s final pay rules require employers to pay all wages due at termination, and Labor Code Section 227.3 treats earned but unused vacation as wages. Whether personal holiday credits fall into the same category is less clear. The CalHR HR Manual does not address payout of personal holidays at separation, and Government Code Section 19854 is silent on the topic. Some bargaining unit MOUs include personal holiday payout provisions and others do not.

If you are approaching retirement or a planned departure, the safest move is to use the day before your last shift or confirm payout eligibility with your personnel office and MOU. Assuming the credit will convert to cash on your final paycheck could leave money on the table.

Tax Treatment If You Cash It Out

Taking the personal holiday as a regular day off is taxed like any other day’s pay. Nothing special shows up on your check.

A cashout is different. The IRS treats lump-sum leave cashouts as supplemental wages, subject to a flat 22% federal income tax withholding rate for 2026.⁵ California state income tax withholding, Social Security, and Medicare taxes also apply.

Employees receiving a leave payout at separation may be able to defer part of it into a 457(b) plan such as the Savings Plus Program to soften the immediate tax hit. The 2026 annual deferral limit for 457(b) plans is $24,500.⁶ Whether a leave payout can be directed into the plan depends on the plan’s rules and timing, so coordinate with Savings Plus well before your separation date.

No CalPERS Service Credit

Unused personal holiday balances do not convert into retirement service credit. CalPERS has specified that leave balance types such as vacation, annual leave, and similar categories are not reportable for service credit purposes.⁷ Unused sick leave is the one leave type CalPERS converts at retirement; the personal holiday does not get that treatment. One more reason to use the day rather than let it sit on your balance.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code Government Code 19854 – Personal Holiday
2
California Department of Human Resources. 2110 – Personal Holidays
3
California State Controller’s Office. Cal Employee Connect
4
California Department of General Services. State Administrative Manual 8534 – Personnel Procedures – Leave Balances Record
5
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15-T, Federal Income Tax Withholding Methods
6
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2025-67 – 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs
7
CalPERS. Circular Letter 200-033-22 – Common Issues Reporting Unused Sick Leave