Complete guide to leave for new dads 2021

What is compulsory and optional leave for working fathers? How many days is it? What is the economic treatment? How to make the request?

When a child is born, a father is also born and there are many things that the new parent must know in order to best provide for the needs of the baby and the family. An essential thing to know, in the field of labor law, is the mandatory and optional leave for the working father. This is 10 days (for births in 2021) of abstention from work that the father can request within the first 5 months of the newborn’s life.

What is father’s leave?

The leave is a right and the request for use cannot be refused by one’s employer. The right arises at the birth of the child and you don’t need to have a certain seniority in the company to use it, just as you don’t even need to have a full-time permanent contract; the worker with a fixed-term, apprenticeship, part-time employment relationship, etc. can also enjoy it.

For the year 2021, employed fathers have the right:

• to compulsory leave lasting 10 days, which can also be taken on a non-continuous basis, within five months of the birth of the child,
• to an optional leave lasting 1 day, to be used in agreement with the mother and in lieu of a corresponding day of compulsory leave due to the latter.

Attention: the leave in question is due in relation to children born, adopted or entrusted starting from 1 January 2021. For children born during the year 2020, the employed father has the right to compulsory leave in the amount of 7 days and of the optional one in the amount of 1 day, even if the use of the leave takes place during 2021.

Economic treatment

For the days of compulsory and optional leave for the father, a daily allowance is payable by INPS equal to 100% of the salary. The worker, therefore, during the days of leave will enjoy the salary that will be advanced in the pay slip by his employer. In turn, the employer will recover the sum given in the company’s monthly social security declaration.

During the days of leave (both compulsory and optional) the worker has the right to accrue all the contractual provisions (thirteenth month, holidays, etc.) as this period is calculated in the length of service for all purposes.

Request for leave

To take advantage of the leave (mandatory and/or optional) the working father must notify the employer in writing of the days chosen to abstain from work, with at least 15 days’ notice.

There is no specific model for making this communication (see example below). No communication is due by the worker to INPS.

In the event of a request for optional leave, the worker must attach to it a declaration from the mother which shows that she does not intend to take maternity leave for one day, with a consequent reduction of the leave itself.

This communication must also be sent by the worker to the mother’s employer.

The advice is to also attach the child’s birth certificate in order to give certainty to the event.