Luxembourg sick leave rules 2026: the 77-day rule and the 80% refund

Sick pay in Luxembourg begins with the employer and moves to the state, and most of what the employer pays out comes back. An employee who falls ill notifies the employer on the first day of absence and produces a medical certificate by the third. The employer then continues the full salary until the end of the calendar month in which the 77th day of incapacity for work falls, counted in calendar days over a rolling period of 18 successive months. From the month after that, the Caisse nationale de santé (CNS) pays the employee directly.

The figure that changes a budget is the reimbursement. Every employer in Luxembourg belongs to the Mutualité des employeurs, the employers’ mutual fund, which refunds 80% of that continued pay, gross remuneration and employer social contributions together, for ordinary sickness and for workplace accidents. Where the incapacity occurs during the initial three-month trial period, the refund is 100%.

So a headline that reads like three months of full salary at the employer’s risk turns into something much smaller in cash terms. The employer funds the salary first and is credited afterwards, which makes a long absence a timing question on four fifths of the amount rather than a cost. Employer of Record Luxembourg runs that cycle each month for client employees who are off sick: pay, declare, claim, credit.

The rules set out below are those in force on 20 September 2026, under the Code du travail and the continued-pay guidance published by the Luxembourg authorities. They apply to every employee on a Luxembourg contract, including the many who commute in each day from Belgium, France or Germany.

Two deadlines govern a Luxembourg sick absence: the first day and the third. The employee must tell the employer of the absence on the first day, as soon as possible, and no particular form is required, so a telephone call, an email or a text message all count. By the third day of incapacity at the latest, the employee must produce a medical certificate.

The certificate comes in three parts. Volet 1 goes to the CNS, volet 2 to the employer and volet 3 stays with the employee. The first two share the same third-day deadline. Where the employee is admitted to hospital as an emergency, the deadline for the certificate extends to eight days.

Short absences are treated differently by the two recipients, which catches employers out. The CNS requires a certificate only where the absence runs beyond two working days. The employer may nonetheless require one from day one, including for a one or two day absence. That is a policy decision worth taking before the first absence rather than during it, and worth writing into the contract or the staff handbook so the same rule applies to everyone.

Missing either deadline costs the employee the protection against dismissal described further down. It does not automatically cost the pay: where the certificate is eventually produced, even late, within the continued-pay period, the right to the continued salary can survive. Record the date each certificate reaches you, because that date decides which of the two consequences applies.

The employer pays full salary until the end of the calendar month in which the 77th day of incapacity for work occurs, over a reference period of 18 successive months. Four details inside that sentence decide what it costs.

• The days counted are calendar days on which the employee was declared unfit for work, not working days, so weekends inside a period of illness count.
• The reference period is 18 successive months and it rolls, so the count does not reset on 1 January.
• The obligation runs to the end of the month in which day 77 falls, not to day 77 itself.
• Where illness is intermittent, the condition has to be re-checked every month, because scattered days build towards the same threshold.

Seventy-seven calendar days is exactly eleven weeks. Rounding up to the end of that month adds anything between a day and a further four weeks, which is why the obligation works out at roughly 11 to 15 weeks of employer-paid sickness in practice. An employee signed off from 20 January reaches day 77 on 6 April, and the employer keeps paying to 30 April. The same illness beginning on 1 March reaches day 77 on 16 May, and pay continues to 31 May.

Intermittent absence is where employers lose the thread. Somebody with a recurring condition may be off for nine days in one month, none the next and three weeks the month after, and every one of those days counts towards the 77. A running total from the first day of incapacity, checked against the rolling 18-month window at each payroll, is the only dependable way to know which month the obligation ends in.

The Mutualité des employeurs reimburses the employer 80% of the payroll charge of a sick employee, which means gross remuneration and employer social contributions together rather than gross salary alone. The refund covers ordinary sickness and workplace accidents. It rises to 100% for incapacity occurring during the initial three-month trial period, and family leave for a sick child, the congé pour raisons familiales, is reimbursed in full as well.

Figures make the size of it clear. An employee on €60,000 gross a year costs an employer €67,974 once employer contributions are added, which is about €5,665 a month of payroll charge. A full month of certified sickness therefore costs roughly €5,665 in the month it happens, of which about €4,532 is refunded, leaving a net cost near €1,133 for that month. The calculation uses the employer contribution rate of 13.29% that applies to a standard commercial employer in 2026, with no bonus, benefit in kind or supplementary pension included.

Affiliation is compulsory and the fund is financed by employers alone. Contributions to the Mutualité des employeurs are set by risk class, with four classes based on an employer’s financial absenteeism rate over a reference period, and every new affiliate starts in class 2. The rates attached to those classes are fixed annually by the Centre commun de la sécurité sociale (CCSS), so check the current one at ccss.public.lu before it goes into a budget. Absence from workplace accidents, maternity leave and family leave is excluded from the classification calculation.

An employee off sick is protected against dismissal for up to 26 weeks from the onset of the incapacity. During that window the employer may not dismiss, may not serve notice and may not convene the employee to an entretien préalable (the preliminary disciplinary meeting). The protection holds even where the employer considers it has grounds amounting to faute grave, serious misconduct.

Protection depends on the employee having met both deadlines, the notification on day one and the certificate by day three. It also falls away in two situations: where the incapacity results from the employee’s voluntary participation in a crime or offence, and where the employee received notice of dismissal before the employer knew of the incapacity. The second turns on sequence and on evidence, which is the practical reason to log the moment a certificate arrives.

After 26 weeks an employer may dismiss, and the ordinary Luxembourg rules then apply in full. The dismissal needs real and serious grounds, and the employer has to be able to show the disruption the absence caused to the business. Notice periods, the rule of the 15th and the indemnité de départ are set out in our guide to terminating employment in Luxembourg.

On what an employer may ask during the absence: you may require a certificate from the first day, ask for the dates of the certified incapacity, and keep the running count of days the 77-day rule depends on. Sickness does not consume annual leave, and leave that could not be taken because of incapacity for work may be taken after the return to work rather than being lost. A trial period is suspended by illness and extended by the length of the absence, with the extension capped at one month.

A month of sickness looks at first like an ordinary month on an EOR invoice, because the employer pays the full salary and the refund arrives later. Payroll runs as normal, the employee receives full pay, employer and employee contributions are paid over, and the sick days are reported to the CCSS on the monthly déclaration de salaires et incapacités de travail, which is returned within ten days.

The credit follows in a later month, once the claim has been processed. Whoever is the legal employer carries the money in between, which is the reason to ask any provider how it treats the refund before signing: whether the reimbursement is passed on when it lands, shown as a separate line, or simply absorbed. Our flat fee of €499 per employee per month does not move while someone is off sick. What moves is the salary line and the credit set against it.

The picture changes again in the month after day 77. From then the CNS pays the employee directly, so the salary stops running through payroll and the employer’s continued-pay obligation, with its refund, comes to an end. The employment itself continues: the contract stays in place and the employee stays registered with the CCSS.

For budgeting, carry the net number rather than the headline. Allow roughly a fifth of a month’s payroll charge for each full month of certified sickness, treat the gross amount as a timing item, and note that the 100% refund during the trial period makes an early absence in a new hire’s first three months close to cost-neutral. Our note on the cost of hiring in Luxembourg sets those figures beside the rest of the employer cost, and the pricing page shows what the fee covers.