Dates
Notice period calculator
Enter the day you plan to resign and the notice period from your agreement. You will get a projected last working day, the days that would need to be waived to leave sooner, and an illustrative buyout figure.
Reading this in your own language does not mean it describes your own country’s law. What you owe comes from your employment agreement and the country you work in. Unless a page names a country, it is deliberately jurisdiction-neutral.
General information only. Employment rules depend on your contract and location.
Employment contracts and notice requirements vary by jurisdiction and circumstances. This tool provides general information and planning guidance, not legal advice. Reading this in your own language does not mean it describes your own country’s law. What you owe comes from your employment agreement and the country you work in. Unless a page names a country, it is deliberately jurisdiction-neutral.
Where the number in the box should come from
What the dates do and do not tell you.
The tool applies whatever notice period you type into it. Getting that figure right is the part that matters, and it comes from your signed agreement first — then, where the agreement is silent or shorter than the local floor, from the rules of the country you work in.
Where a notice obligation comes from explains the three places the number can come from and how they interact. Notice periods by country lists the four countries whose rules are published here with sources and dates, and the honest status of every other country with a record.
The calculator does arithmetic on the two numbers you give it. That is genuinely useful — most people are working from a rough guess about when they would actually finish — but it is not a reading of your contract, and where the two disagree, the contract governs.
Where the count starts
Agreements differ on whether notice runs from the day you submit your resignation, the day it is acknowledged, or the day it is formally accepted. A few count from the start of the following month. The calculator assumes the first, because it is the most common, but this is exactly the sort of detail worth confirming in writing before you plan around a date.
Calendar days versus business days
Most notice clauses expressed in days mean calendar days, and most expressed in weeks or months mean the obvious thing. Business-day counting appears more often in shift work and some contractor agreements. The business-day mode here skips weekends only — public holidays are not modelled, and your employer’s holiday calendar may shift the end date.
What happens to leave during notice
Some employers let you use accrued leave to shorten the time you are physically working; others explicitly do not allow leave during notice, or pay it out instead. This is one of the most commonly assumed and least commonly checked parts of an exit, and it can move your last working day by weeks.
Early release
The midpoint date shown is illustrative — a common landing point in negotiations, not an entitlement. Whether you are released early usually depends on how the handover is going, whether a replacement is lined up, and how the conversation is handled. Asking early, in writing, and with a concrete handover plan attached tends to work better than asking late.
Two worked examples
A fixed start date, working backwards. A new job starts on the 1st of November and you have 60 days of notice counted from the day after you resign. Working backwards, the last day you can resign and still finish in time is the 1st of September. Resigning on the 20th of September leaves 19 days that have to be waived, shortened, or bought out — which is a very different conversation to have on the 20th than on the 1st.
A clause that says “one month”. Resigning on the 31st of January with one month of notice, counted as a calendar month, ends on the 28th of February — 28 days. The same clause read as “30 days” ends on the 2nd of March. Two days is rarely decisive on its own, but it decides which side of a month-end payroll run your last day falls on, and that can move a final settlement by weeks.
What this tool does not know
- Public holidays. Business-day mode skips weekends only, and holiday calendars differ by country, state, and employer.
- Leave. Whether accrued leave can shorten the time you are physically working, or is paid out instead, is set by your agreement.
- Statutory minimums. Many countries set a floor under notice, and some override a shorter contractual term. This tool applies your figure, not the law.
- Your contract’s own definition of when notice starts and ends, which beats every assumption here.
Who pays whom
Three different things get called “paying out the notice”.
They point in different directions, cost different people money, and are not interchangeable — but they share almost all their vocabulary, which is why so many people end up agreeing to one while thinking they agreed to another. Before any conversation about leaving early, work out which of these three you are actually asking for.
The employer pays the employee
You stop working now, and the employer pays for the notice you would have worked. In the UK this is usually called payment in lieu of notice; elsewhere it may be wages in lieu, or simply a settlement. Money moves toward you. Whether it is available at all normally depends on the contract or on the employer agreeing to it.
The employee pays the employer
You leave before the notice ends and pay for the part you did not serve. This is the one usually called a notice buyout, notice recovery, or a shortfall. Money moves away from you, or — where the law and your terms allow it — is deducted from your final settlement. Sometimes a new employer agrees to cover it — get that in writing before you rely on it.
Nobody pays: the notice is waived
The employer agrees to release you early and does not charge for the unserved days. Often the cheapest and most common outcome once a handover is genuinely covered, and the one most people never ask for because they assume it is not on the table. It is an agreement, not a right — so put it in writing.
Which of these is available to you, what it is called, and how it is taxed are all set by your agreement and by where you work. This site does not answer the tax question in any jurisdiction, because doing so responsibly needs a tax-authority source rather than an inference.
How notice buyout works, and what to do when an employer refuses covers the employee-pays direction in full.
Reading the result
Next
- How to use a notice period calculator for how to read the inputs and the result correctly.
- Run the full exit check to see how these dates interact with your money and your next role.
- Calculate your runway if the timing means a gap in income.
- See the full sequence from resignation to final settlement.