The State Duma deputy spoke about the months that are beneficial for vacations

In Russia, a vacation in May may turn out to be less financially profitable, despite the long weekend. Alexey Govyrin, a State Duma deputy and member of the State Duma Committee on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, told Izvestia about this on March 27, explaining how the production calendar affects the amount of payments.

According to Article 139 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the average daily salary for vacation pay is calculated for the last 12 months. The amount is determined by dividing the accrued salary by 12 and by a coefficient of 29.3. The formula itself remains unchanged for any season, but the total income is affected by the number of working days in a particular month.

"For an employee with a fixed salary, the monthly salary is actually distributed according to the working days of a particular month. The fewer the working days, the more expensive each of them is," he noted.

Govyrin stressed that in May 2026, with a standard five-day schedule, there will be only 19 working days. According to him, when an employee goes on vacation at this time, he replaces "expensive" work shifts with vacation shifts, which is why the total income is lower.

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According to the specialist, Article 120 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation establishes that the holidays of May 1 and 9 are not included in the number of calendar days of vacation. If the rest falls on these dates, they are not deducted from the employee's allotted 28 days. Thus, the actual rest period is extended, although the employee does not receive additional payments for the holidays.

The MP stressed that in order to maximize monetary benefits in 2026, it is better to choose July, April, September, October or December. The least profitable holidays will be January, February and May. At the same time, the May period is convenient for those who want to get a long uninterrupted rest by adding vacation days to official holidays.

"It is worth mentioning separately that all this calculation works primarily for salary earners on a standard five-day schedule. With a shift schedule, piecework or cumulative accounting of working hours, the economic effect may differ, although the basic rules of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation on calculating average earnings and not including holidays in vacations are preserved for everyone," concluded Govyrin.

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Olga Chirikova, senior lecturer at the Department of Civil Law Disciplines at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, said on March 27 that if a Russian takes a working week off from May 4 to May 8, the May holidays will last a total of 11 days. In addition, Chirikova added that the May holidays in 2026 were shortened due to the mechanics of postponing weekends. In addition, the expert drew attention to the special order for the New Year holidays.

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