PTO Days by Industry: How Many Is Normal? (BLS 2026)
On this page
“How many vacation days should we offer?” doesn’t have to be a guess. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures it every year in its National Compensation Survey, and the answer is more useful than a single number.
Short answer: in US private industry, the average is 11 paid vacation days after 1 year of service, 16 after 5 years, 18 after 10 and 20 after 20 (BLS, March 2026). Paid holidays and about 7 sick days come on top. And 1 in 5 private industry workers has no paid vacation at all.
| Years of service | Paid vacation days (private industry, March 2026) |
|---|---|
| 1 year | 11 |
| 5 years | 16 |
| 10 years | 18 |
| 20 years | 20 |
What the March 2026 data shows
Days offered scale with tenure, not a flat number. The BLS chart of vacation days by length of service puts private industry workers at 11 days after 1 year, 16 after 5, 18 after 10 and 20 after 20. Most of the increase comes early: five days between the first and the fifth year, then two more in each of the next two steps. Sick leave in the same chart stays at 7 days whatever the tenure.
Access isn’t universal. Table 6 of the March 2026 release counts who has any paid vacation: 80% of private industry workers. Behind that number:
- By industry: 91% in goods-producing industries and in hospitals, 82% in health care and social assistance, 77% in service-providing industries as a whole, and 66% in educational services.
- By job: 93% of full-time workers and 38% of part-time workers; 94% in the best-paid quarter of jobs and 55% in the lowest-paid quarter.
- By employer size: 89% at establishments with 100 or more workers, 72% at those with 1 to 99.
For part-time and low-wage jobs, “how many days” is often not the question: whether there is paid vacation at all is.
Why this matters more than picking a round number
Setting a policy at “15 days for everyone” without checking which of these benchmarks applies risks two mistakes in opposite directions: offering less than the norm where nearly everyone has paid vacation (a recruiting disadvantage against employers who match the benchmark), or a flat policy that ignores the tenure steps most employers use, which reads as less competitive to an experienced candidate even if the year-one number looks fine.
The useful version of this benchmark isn’t “here’s the number to copy” but “here’s what to check before setting the number”:
- What’s the norm for the jobs you hire for, not only the private-industry average: full-time and part-time workers sit 55 points apart on access alone.
- Does your policy scale with tenure, as the averages do from 11 to 20 days, or is it flat?
- Is access itself the gap for some of your roles, separate from the number of days?
To see what a policy gives an employee per pay period and by year end, next to these BLS numbers, try the free PTO accrual calculator.
An honest limitation, stated plainly
OutSync’s accrual policy today is a single org-wide default — days per year, half-day increments, and a carryover cap — rather than a schedule that automatically increases as an individual employee’s tenure grows. An organization that wants to match the BLS tenure steps precisely (11 days at year one, rising to 16 at year five) currently needs to update the org default manually as that milestone approaches, rather than have it apply automatically per employee. Worth stating this limitation directly rather than implying a capability that isn’t there yet — see the Standard vs. Advanced edition breakdown for exactly what today’s accrual policy does and doesn’t cover.
Planning who is off when? Our free team holiday calendar for 2027 is an Excel file with the US and UK public holidays by region and a running total of days left.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
How many PTO days is normal in the US?
In private industry, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measured an average of 11 paid vacation days after 1 year of service in March 2026, 16 after 5 years, 18 after 10 years and 20 after 20 years. That is vacation alone: the same survey counts 7 paid sick days on average, and paid holidays come on top.
Does every industry offer paid vacation?
No. In March 2026, 80% of private industry workers had access to paid vacation, but 91% in goods-producing industries and hospitals against 66% in educational services. The bigger gaps are by job: 93% of full-time workers against 38% of part-time workers, and 55% in the lowest-paid quarter of jobs (BLS, Table 6).
Do vacation days grow with years of service?
Yes, in the averages: from 11 days after 1 year to 20 after 20 years in private industry, March 2026. Most of the step comes early, 5 extra days between year 1 and year 5, then 2 more by year 10 and 2 more by year 20.
Does OutSync support tenure-based accrual that increases over time?
OutSync's accrual policy is currently a single org-wide default (days per year, half-day increments, carryover cap) rather than an automatically-increasing schedule keyed to each employee's tenure — a real, current limitation worth stating plainly rather than implying a capability that isn't there yet.