Now that you have hired a Filipino virtual assistant, you’re probably wondering how to deal with Philippine holidays. What about paid time off? What would be the best way to approach this?

Well, that mostly depends on your outsourcing arrangement. It’s best to address these issues of paid time off and holidays early to avoid interrupting your operations.

What You Need To Know About Paid Time Off (PTO)

Most Filipino workers and businesses in the Philippines recognize the following paid leaves:

1. Sick Leaves. Most businesses offer up to 15 leaves per year, which can be filed on the day itself. Most companies start offering this once the employee has completed their training period or has been with them for at least 6 months.
2. Vacation Leaves. The number varies but generally ranges between 5 to 15 days per calendar year. This is an optional leave.
3. Service Incentive Leaves. This option is offered when an employee doesn’t use up all his leaves. He can get the cash equivalent of the leaves that weren’t taken for that year. Or, the employee can take an extended leave to use up all the paid leaves.
4. Maternity Leave. Women are eligible for 105 days of leave covering childbirth, miscarriage, and emergency termination of pregnancy. While they are on leave, the business doesn’t have to pay them. The Philippine Social Security System (SSS) would cover the salaries if your employee made regular contributions to the social security fund for at least 3 years (36 contributions).
5. Paternity Leave. Philippine Law now allows fathers to take a paid leave up to seven days within a month of having a baby.
6. Parental Leave. The law allows single parents with sole custody of their children an additional 7 days of paid leave.
7. Rehabilitation Leave. This is provided for employees who have suffered some injury or illness. The extent of the leave depends on the doctor’s recommendation and company policy.

Do All These Leaves Apply To Your Outsourced Employees?

Not really. The paid leave you offer would depend on your work arrangement with your Filipino VA. In some cases, paid leave would not apply to all. Let’s examine the common outsourcing scenarios and whether paid leave would apply.

VAs Paid By The Hour

Holidays: If you hire your workers on a per-hour basis and don’t need them to work over the holidays, you don’t need to offer them paid time off.

You might want to offer additional incentives if you need them to work over the holidays. An option will be to increase their hourly rates if you need them to work over the holidays.

Paid Leaves: If you want to be generous with your VA and offer any of the leaves presented above, you definitely can do that. But paid leaves generally don’t really apply to workers who are paid by the hour.

VAs Paid Per Project

Holidays: If the holiday falls within the agreed-upon timeline for the project, there’s no need to offer paid time off. When you pay per project, the contract is with the output, not the dates.

But if you want your VAs to rush on a project and require working over the holidays, giving a bonus for early project completion would be fair compensation.

Paid Leaves: The same goes for virtual assistants paid by the hour. It’s your prerogative to offer leaves or incentives.

Part-time and Full-time VAs Paid Per Month/Week (The Onlinejobs.ph Way)

Holidays: When you hire Filipino virtual assistants to work part-time or full-time, you can approach this in several ways.

The Philippine Department of Labor recommends offering paid time off during regular holidays. If it’s a regular holiday, you must double their rate or 200% for that day. If it’s a special holiday, you pay their regular rate plus 30% for that day.

However, Filipino VAs are considered independent contractors, so the Department of Labor recommendations don’t need to apply to them. But if you want to pay them more to work over the holidays, that’s your prerogative.

What we do here at Onlinejobs.ph is we pay them the same salary regardless of how many holidays there are that month. They can choose to work or take the day off on holidays. So we don’t need to compute how much more we need to pay them if they work over the holidays.

Paid Leaves: We strongly recommend offering whatever paid leaves would be reasonable for you and your business. Most businesses provide leaves when employees have worked for at least 6 months. In the case of Philippine businesses, they would offer 1 sick leave and 1 vacation leave per month once the employee is done with their probationary status.

At OnlineJobs.ph, we’ve always offered the VAs who work for us as much paid leave time (PTO) as they want. Our policy is to take as much time as you wish; just please let us know when you’re taking it.

What About Holidays?

It’s best to discuss this with your VA as soon as you hire them.

Filipinos are very family-oriented and often plan trips or celebrations around long holidays. Some choose to forgo holidays if they can “save up” these days for extended leaves. Settling these issues early on will avoid scheduling problems in the future.

There are two types of holidays in the Philippines. Regular holidays and special holidays.

Regular holidays are the major holidays and the ones most Filipinos observe. They are usually non-working holidays and have a fixed date like New Year’s Day or Christmas (except for National Heroes Day and the religious holidays of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Eid’l Fitr, and Eidul Adha).

Filipinos employed by registered businesses are usually given paid time off during regular holidays. They are entitled to 2x their rate for that day if required to work. But this doesn’t apply to independent contractors like your virtual assistant.

Special holidays can be non-working or working, depending on the Philippine government’s proclamation. The “no work, no pay” principle applies here. Workers can take the day off but won’t be paid for it. Again, this doesn’t apply to independent contractors like your virtual assistant.

If employees work on a special working holiday, they’re only entitled to their basic salary.

If they work on a special non-working holiday, they would be entitled to their basic salary plus an additional 30%.

Filipino virtual assistants understand there will be holidays when they need to work. Asking your VA to do that doesn’t have to be awkward.

1. Check out the Philippine Holiday Calendar

Below is the 2025 Philippine Holiday Calendar. We update this every year as soon as the Philippine government releases an official list of holidays.

But if you want something integrated into your calendar, subscribe to our Philippine Holidays Google calendar.

2. Create your own calendar listing the holidays on which they can take the day off and the holidays on which they need to work.

Now that you have the Philippine holidays, you must also look at your holiday calendar. Combine them into one calendar. On that calendar, mark:

• what holidays does your VA absolutely need to work
• what holidays are negotiable
• what holidays they can take the day off

We recommend that you do this every year.

Laying this out beforehand allows your virtual assistant to plan their schedule. This will also allow you to budget for their holiday pay (if you want them to work over the holidays) early on.

3. Lay out your policies on paid and unpaid time off

Now that it’s clear what holidays your VA can take their days off, you need to set up a procedure for filing leaves and vacation days.

• What does your virtual assistant need to do if they want to take a holiday or sick leave?
• Do they need to email you? Call you?
• Do you have a form that needs to be filled out?
• How many days in advance do they need to do this?

This system varies from business to business. You can use your experience as a guide or talk to your staff to determine what works best for you as a team.

4. Include the holiday schedule and paid time off policy in your onboarding process.

Presenting these leave policies early on is not only good employment practice, but it also helps avoid any misunderstanding that might arise once the holidays come up. When VAs know as soon as they’re hired:

• when they can start earning leave credits,
• which holidays they need to work,
• which paid holidays they have off,
• how much their holiday pay is,
• and how they can file leaves.

They can get to work right away. They (and you) don’t have to feel anxious when holidays come up. You have a system in place that you can use when needed. And with clear policies like this, outsourcing can be a less stressful experience.

Tips When Establishing Holiday and PTO Policies

Once you hire a virtual assistant, you must establish a schedule and policies on holidays and PTO.

A clear policy would help avoid surprises, such as all your employees taking leaves simultaneously or not preparing for overtime pay.

Put it down in writing.

Include holiday or PTO policies in their contract, company policy, or wiki. Even if you had it written down in your email or messages when you first hired them, it’s best to have a shared document you can agree on. This document will guide you when you hire more VAs or if any issues arise.

Communicate early what needs to be done over the holidays

In an ideal world, we all could take a vacation during the holidays.

But in many cases, the holidays won’t stop customers from coming in, and nobody will want to do more than they absolutely have to.

So, to make things easier for everyone, be clear about what kind of work needs to be done over the holidays and avoid adding unnecessary work.

As much as possible, push all non-essential tasks until after the holidays. By then, your team would be rested and ready to take on more work.

Prepare shift schedules ahead of time.

Sharing the load is one way to make working over the holidays more tolerable.

By distributing the holiday shifts early, you’re giving your VAs time to plan around work and enjoy the holidays.

Show some appreciation.

Another way to make working off the holidays more palatable is to show appreciation. A quick email thanking your team over the holidays would be nice.

If you can afford it, offering them 13th Month Pay will go a long way.

Pay them early!

The holidays are also one of the most challenging times for sending money to the Philippines. Overseas workers send more money during this time, and the back-to-back banking holidays add more bottlenecks to the process. ‘

So avoid the rush. Send salaries and bonuses as earlier.

Address these issues early on to avoid any headaches in the future. Remember that many Filipinos feel uncomfortable talking about these things, so you must make the first move. Get this out of the way so your VA can start working, and you can start growing your business.

Want more tips on how you can improve your outsourcing experience? Check out our case studies or take our 7-day challenge at OneVAAway.com

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About Julia Jasmine M. Sta Romana
Julia has been working for OnlineJobs.ph since 2012, first as a writer and now as its social media manager and content development specialist. She also founded the Davao Virtual Assistants Association, the biggest VA association in Davao City.

She’s a full-time wife and mom and volunteers her time as an internet rights advocate.