Article
3 min read
The true shape of summer break
Author
Lauren Thomas
Published
June 30, 2026
This is a chart-led look at how the world actually takes vacation. The data comes from Deel's platform; the charts and analysis are a collaboration with our friends at a16z.
All of the data below comes from companies using Deel, so it skews toward startups, tech companies, and remote-first firms relative to average population data. Rather than "this is how everyone takes vacation," this is more accurately "how people in our industry (and other white-collar vocations) take vacation around the world." Which, frankly, is just as interesting a comparison if not more.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a wide range of how much vacation days are offered to the median employee, and an equally wide range of, “do people actually take all of the vacation they’re owed?” North America clusters more stingily than Europe does, but there’s still a lot of variation within regions, particularly among people who claim 100% of the days off that they’re offered:
The one caveat we can think of here, which would be hard to untangle with the data we have here, is, “Do norms vary between countries on how much people formally take the vacation days off, as opposed to informally (and not officially docking the days with HR)?”
Over the course of the year, the Germans hold the OOO crown. But not consistently! Swedes and Italians trade places in July / August. The British are (proportionately) at their desks in peak summer; the Dutch over Christmas.
True to form, European out-of-office messages are doing a lot of work over the course of the summer.
And also the rest of the year, while we’re at it.
Interestingly, there’s a wide range of how long people take their summer breaks - and, while Europe clusters differently from the Americas on the usual pattern, Brazil breaks the trend. There’s a reason for this, it turns out! Brazil has some interesting laws about how employees take vacations. Brazilians get 30 days of vacation allowances (including bank holidays), but they have to take those holidays in blocks; a maximum of 3 per year, apparently. You learn something every day!
Still, most “vacations” are a day off, not a long holiday.
Another regional variation: vacation days in India are booked last minute. Whether that reflects a genuine last-minute trip decision, or simply last-minute disclosure to HR, we can’t say.
Long weekends seem to have special allure in the summertime. It makes sense that vacation days skew towards Mondays and Fridays, and also that the effect gets magnified in the warmer months. Still, this is a smaller discrepancy than we would’ve guessed!
A popular alternative, the “Summer Friday”, is more officially popular abroad than it is here. Unofficially, though, is another question. Our guess is that Americans are doing it off the books, rather than formally taking the half-days off.
Looking at last year as an example, it’s no surprise that the single most common day to take off is a “buy one get one free” situation.
Birthdays are also a popular day to take off, but more so for big ones. Turning 31? Not worth celebrating, apparently.
Also, Sweden, what’s going on here?
And then there’s the dirty little secret of vacation days… sick days. Which, of course, are only used for recovering from illness; we would never imply anything otherwise.
Of course, we’ve spent all this time on summer holidays, but the real empty office weeks are at Christmastime.
The War on Christmas never won the enterprise, apparently.
So, no matter how hard our Swedish, French, and German friends work to make those vacation days count, summer break is still getting mogged by Christmas break. (Everywhere but… Armenia?)
Wherever and however you’re taking any time off this summer, enjoy it!
Have a great summer, from the folks at Deel and a16z. If you want more charts like these, you can subscribe to Deel’s substack here.
Lauren Thomas is Deel's founding Economist, where she’s helping to bring Deel’s mission of breaking down geographic barriers to opportunity to life through data — a mission that resonates personally, as she's worked and studied in six cities across three countries!
Before joining Deel, Lauren worked in economic research and data storytelling at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Glassdoor, and Stripe. She has degrees in economics and data science from Oxford, Université Lumière Lyon 2, and Northwestern University.
Outside of work, she enjoys reading, playing volleyball, climbing, sewing her own clothes, and using Oxford commas. She does not enjoy long flights but takes a lot of them anyway!
