Leave management in Cambodia
How Cambodian employers set leave entitlements, route approvals, keep balances honest, and carry the result into attendance and payroll.
Entitlement is a policy decision, not a default
Cambodian labour law sets a floor — paid annual leave that accrues with service, sick leave, and specific special leave. Above that floor every employer makes choices: how leave accrues, whether unused days carry over, and what happens to a balance at exit. Those choices need to be written down before the first request arrives, because the first request is when staff discover what the rules are.
Where leave usually goes wrong
- The balance is checked after approval instead of before
- Approved leave never reaches the attendance record, so the day looks absent
- Leave without pay is agreed verbally and never reaches payroll
- Nobody can say who approved a day off six months ago
A leave request, from tap to payslip
Leave touches three other things — the balance, the attendance record, and pay. A request that only lives in a chat message touches none of them.
- 1Administrator
Define the leave types and what each one grants
Annual, sick, maternity, special, unpaid — each is its own type with its own entitlement and its own balance. Keeping them separate is what lets you answer "how much annual leave is left?" without arithmetic.
- 2EmployeePending
Request the days
Dates, type, and reason. A half day is a half day, not a rounded-up full one — which matters later, because a half-day absence still lets the employee clock the half they work.
- 3Humaneti
Check the balance before the request stands
The available balance for that leave type is checked at request time, not at approval. An approver is therefore never put in the position of approving days the employee does not have.
- 4ApproverApproved / Rejected
The configured approver decides
Leave routes through the same workflow engine as purchases and expenses, resolved against this employee's reporting line. The decision, the approver, and the time are recorded — so the question six months later has an answer.
- 5Humaneti
Approved leave changes the attendance day
A full day of approved leave blocks a check-in — you cannot be present and on leave on the same day, because that double-counts the day for payroll. The balance is deducted at the same moment.
- 6Humaneti
Payroll reads the period, not a summary of it
When the run processes, unpaid leave in that period reduces pay directly. Nobody hands payroll a list of who was off — which is where the number normally gets lost.
- 7HR / Payroll
Year end and exit settle the balance
Carry-over or encashment is applied against the recorded balance rather than a recollection of it — and at exit the remaining entitlement is one of the figures final pay is built from.
Sources
Every rate on this page comes from the instrument below. Check them against your own filing before you rely on a figure.
- Labour Law provisions on paid annual leaveMinistry of Labour and Vocational Training (MLVT) · Labour Law, contracts, leave and seniority indemnity
Prakas number not yet cited — confirm the current instrument with the issuing body.
- Prakas on seniority paymentMinistry of Labour and Vocational Training (MLVT) · Labour Law, contracts, leave and seniority indemnity
Prakas number not yet cited — confirm the current instrument with the issuing body.
Rates on this page have not been verified against the current instruments.Reviewed every quarter and whenever a new Prakas is issued.