Sri Lanka No-Pay Leave Salary Deduction Calculator
Enter your salary and unpaid leave days to see the exact pay cut, your net salary, and the EPF/ETF impact, under the 30-day, working-days, or actual-days method your employer uses. No signup, sources cited below.
How it works
No-pay (unpaid) leave is salary you forfeit for days you are absent once your paid leave runs out. Sri Lanka has no single statutory divisor for private employers, so payroll teams use one of three recognised methods. The tool runs all three and lets you select the one your employer applies. Let S be the salary base (basic or gross, your choice), n the no-pay days, and D the divisor for the method:
- Per-day rate = S ÷ D. The divisor differs by method:
- 30-day (calendar): D = 30. The most common private-sector default and the simplest. Every month costs the same per day, which is why HR teams like it.
- Working days: D = the days the office operates (you enter this; typically 22). A smaller divisor means a higher per-day rate, so the same leave costs more.
- Actual days: D = the calendar length of the month (28–31). This mirrors the Establishments Code basis used for part-month public-sector salary, and it makes February the most expensive month to take unpaid leave in.
- No-pay deduction = per-day rate × n, capped at one full month's salary so the result never goes below zero.
- Net salary = S − deduction. The tool cross-checks this against the equivalent “pay for days worked” formula (per-day rate × the days you did work), which lands on the same figure.
- EPF / ETF impact. EPF and ETF are charged on the earnings actually paid for the month, so the reduced salary becomes the new contribution base. Employee EPF = base × 8%, employer EPF = base × 12%, ETF = base × 3%. The panel compares these against a full-pay month so you see exactly how much less reaches your fund. The rates are fixed by statute; only the base falls.
Which divisor applies to you
Start with your letter of appointment or the staff handbook, if either names a divisor, that is the one payroll must use. If they are silent, the practical test is your sector. Government and semi-government officers are apportioned over the actual days of the month under the Establishments Code. Private employers on a fixed monthly salary overwhelmingly use 30. The working-days divisor shows up where pay is conceptually tied to attendance: shift rosters, factory floors, agencies billing clients by the day, and staff who already earn overtime at a per-hour rate. The choice is not cosmetic, on a Rs 90,000 salary, four no-pay days cost Rs 12,000 at D = 30 but Rs 16,364 at D = 22, a 36% difference for identical absence.
Edge cases the tool handles
Half days. Enter 0.5 steps directly. A half day is simply half the per-day rate; nothing in the formula changes. More no-pay days than the month holds. If n exceeds D, the raw arithmetic would produce a deduction larger than the salary and a negative net. The calculator caps the deduction at S, reports a net of zero, and flags that the cap was applied. This is what a payroll system does when an absence spans a month boundary and both months are billed. Zero-pay months. When net pay reaches zero there are no earnings to charge EPF or ETF on, so no contribution is credited for the month and the gap shows in your EPF member statement. Short months. On the actual-days method a February day costs S ÷ 28 while a March day costs S ÷ 31, a 10.7% swing for the same single day of leave.
Where no-pay sits in the payroll order
Order of operations matters, because every downstream figure is computed on what is left. Payroll subtracts no-pay from gross first, and the reduced gross then becomes the base for employee EPF, for employer EPF and ETF, and for the month's APIT withholding. That is why a no-pay month lowers your tax as well as your pay, and why the tax saving never compensates for the cut. Deductions that are fixed rupee amounts (a staff loan instalment, a welfare society subscription) are taken after all of that, which is how a heavy no-pay month can leave a payslip with a negative take-home that payroll then carries forward. To see the whole sequence on one sheet, run the reduced gross through the Sri Lanka payslip generator.
For v1 the EPF-eligible amount is taken to be the salary base you enter. In practice EPF applies to basic salary plus permanent allowances, so if your allowances are excluded from EPF, choose the “basic only” base. Lump-sum payments, full APIT re-calculation on the reduced salary, and hourly proration beyond half-days are out of scope, use the Sri Lanka income tax calculator for the tax side of a changed salary.
Worked examples
Every figure above was computed by hand first and then reconciled to the cent against the calculator's output, so the examples and the tool cannot drift apart.
Frequently asked questions
Divide your monthly salary by the divisor your employer's payroll uses, then multiply by your unpaid days: deduction = (salary ÷ D) × n. D is 30 under the calendar method, the month's working days (usually 22) under the working-days method, or the month's actual length (28–31) under the Establishments Code method. On Rs 90,000 with D = 30, one no-pay day costs Rs 3,000 and your net pay is Rs 87,000.
A Sri Lankan payslip normally carries four kinds of deduction. Employee EPF at 8% of EPF-eligible earnings is statutory. APIT (the old PAYE) is withheld against the IRD monthly table once you cross the tax-free threshold. No-pay leave is deducted for unpaid absence. Voluntary items, salary advances, staff loan instalments, insurance, welfare society dues, come last. Employer EPF at 12% and ETF at 3% are employer costs and are never cut from your pay.
See every deduction on one payslip with the take-home salary calculator
Under the Shop and Office Employees Act, once you have completed a full calendar year of service you earn 14 days of paid annual leave for the following year. In your first year it accrues by the quarter you joined, 14, 10, 7 or 4 days, and casual leave of 7 days a year accrues proportionately over that first year. Any day you take once that balance is exhausted is a no-pay day, which is where this calculator starts.
Work out your exact entitlement with the annual leave calculator
Leave salary is the pay you keep for days covered by paid leave, so it equals your ordinary per-day rate and changes nothing on the payslip, a paid leave day is paid like a worked day. Only days beyond your entitlement are priced separately, at per-day rate × unpaid days. If instead you are being paid out for leave you never took, that is leave encashment and uses a different basis.
Paying out unused leave instead? Use the leave encashment calculator
There is no single law fixing the divisor for private employers. Three methods are in common use: divide the monthly salary by 30 (calendar), by the working days in the month (often 22), or by the actual calendar days (28–31). The 30-day method is the most common private-sector default; the actual-days method is used for part-month public-sector salary under the Establishments Code. Always confirm which one your employer applies.
Yes. EPF (employee 8% + employer 12%) and ETF (3%) are charged on the earnings actually paid for the month. A no-pay deduction lowers that base, so all three contributions shrink for that month, but the rates never change. This calculator shows the reduced contribution and how much less goes into your EPF account.
For public officers, part-month salary is apportioned over the number of days in the month, so one day's no-pay equals the monthly salary divided by the actual calendar days (28, 29, 30 or 31). Pick the 'Actual days in month' method and enter the month length to mirror this basis. The same apportionment is used when an officer joins or leaves part-way through a month.
It depends on your contract and employer policy. Many employers deduct no-pay on basic salary only; others use gross (basic plus fixed allowances), and a few prorate allowances separately from basic. Use the 'Deduction base' selector to match your case. If your letter of appointment is silent, ask payroll which figure they divide, the difference on a Rs 30,000 allowance is real money.
Only days you were rostered to work and did not attend are counted. A Poya day, a gazetted public holiday or your weekly rest day inside a period of absence is normally not charged as no-pay under the 30-day and actual-days methods, because the monthly salary already covers the whole calendar month. Under the working-days method those days are outside the divisor to begin with. Employers differ on long continuous absences, so check the policy.
Usually yes. APIT is withheld on the remuneration actually paid in the month, so a smaller gross means a lower monthly tax, and if the cut drops you under the monthly relief threshold, nil tax for that month. It is a timing effect, not a saving: your annual liability is settled on the year's total remuneration, so a no-pay month mostly shifts tax rather than removing it.
Yes, if your no-pay days reach the full divisor for the month (for example 30 no-pay days on the 30-day method), the deduction equals one month's salary and your net pay is zero. If you enter more no-pay days than the month's payable days, the calculator caps the deduction at one full month so the net never goes negative. A zero-pay month also means no EPF or ETF contribution is credited for you.
No-pay leave approved by your employer does not break continuity of service, so it still counts towards the five years needed for gratuity under the Payment of Gratuity Act. Gratuity itself is computed on your last drawn monthly salary, not on a no-pay month's reduced figure, so a short unpaid spell does not shrink the payout. Unauthorised absence is a different matter and is a disciplinary question, not a payroll one.
Because each divides the same salary by a different number of days. A smaller divisor (22 working days) produces a larger per-day rate than a bigger divisor (31 actual days), so the same no-pay days cost more under the working-days method. The comparison table makes the gap explicit so you are not surprised by your payslip.
The rates and methodology were last cross-checked against the EPF/ETF Acts, the Shop & Office Act, and the Establishments Code on 2026-09-22. The EPF 8% + 12% and ETF 3% rates are statutory and reviewed whenever the relevant Act is amended.
Sources & references
- Establishments Code of Sri Lanka, Chapter XII (Leave): Department of Public Administration
- Shop and Office Employees Act No. 19 of 1954 (as amended): Department of Labour
- Employees' Provident Fund Act No. 15 of 1958 (8% + 12%): Central Bank of Sri Lanka, EPF Department
- Employees' Trust Fund Act No. 46 of 1980 (3%): ETF Board
- WageIndicator Sri Lanka: salary, leave and labour-law reference
The EPF/ETF rates and the three deduction methods were last cross-checked against these sources on 2026-09-22. Employer payroll policy decides which divisor applies to you, confirm it with your HR or payroll team before relying on a figure. This page explains general practice and is not legal advice; a dispute over an unlawful deduction is a matter for the Department of Labour.
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