Time-Out Zone

Flexibility with a floor, freedom with a record

Let employees borrow days before they earn them, inside a limit you set. Or drop the cap entirely with unlimited PTO, where every day beyond the base is tracked. Both per leave type.

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One borrowed day, start to finish

An employee with one day left requests two. The balance dips below zero, stays inside the borrowing limit you set, and at the new cycle auto deduct repays the borrowed day from the fresh allotment.

  • The balance drops to -1.0, never past the floor.
  • The new cycle opens with the full allotment, and the debt is repaid first.

Who goes unlimited, and who borrows

7%

of US companies offer unlimited PTO, up from 1% a decade ago

57%

of US tech employers offer it, while manufacturing stays near zero

22%

of organizations with a PTO-bank plan let employees borrow into a negative balance

5 days

is the most common limit for how far below zero a balance may go

  • Unlimited PTO remains a white-collar perk, concentrated in tech, finance, and media.
  • In the DACH region the same idea is emerging as Vertrauensurlaub, still rare and mostly in startups.

Figures from public US employer benefit surveys, 2024 to 2026. Rounded.

Unlimited, with a base you still guarantee

Approved days fill the guaranteed base first. Anything beyond goes through the manager and is counted as overage, with no hard cap and no lost record.

  • The base stays a firm promise, not an estimate.
  • Overage is tracked in the open without consuming a balance.

Borrow before it's earned

Enable negative balances per leave type and employees can request days they haven't accrued yet, without HR side deals.

An overdraft floor you set

Cap borrowing as fixed days or a percentage of the yearly allocation. Requests past the floor are blocked for everyone.

Three year-end answers

Auto deduct repays debt from the new allotment, forgive wipes it, charge back keeps it visible for payroll to settle.

Unlimited, with a record

The allotment becomes a guaranteed base; days beyond it are manager-approved and tracked as overage.

The fine print, built in

Fixed days or percentage

The overdraft limit is absolute or scales with each person's allocation.

Approvals stay tracked

On unlimited types, every approval is recorded without consuming a fixed balance.

Negative Balance Report

One report lists everyone below zero, with exact borrowed amounts.

One or the other

A leave type can be unlimited or allow negative balances, never both at once.

Both options live in the leave type wizard, so different leave types can follow different rules in the same company.

Borrowing

Negative balances with a hard floor

Turn on negative balances for a leave type and the request form does the math in the open.

  • Employees see the exact impact before submitting: current balance, the dip below zero, and the borrowing limit.
  • The floor is enforced twice, in the form and again on the server, so no request can slip past it.
  • Managers approving a borrowed request see the borrowing limit and the negative balance it creates, in plain numbers.

Year-end

Debt has a plan before it happens

Every negative-balance leave type carries a reconciliation strategy, chosen up front, applied automatically at cycle reset.

  • Auto deduct starts the new cycle by repaying the borrowed days from the fresh allotment.
  • Forgive clears the debt and hands over the full new balance.
  • Charge back keeps the debt on the books for payroll to settle outside the app.

Unlimited

Unlimited PTO that leaves a trail

Flip one toggle and a lump-sum leave type loses its hard cap without losing its structure.

  • The yearly allotment becomes a guaranteed base every employee can count on.
  • Days beyond the base go through the manager and are tracked as discretionary overage.
  • Employees see the guaranteed base and manager-discretion overage spelled out on their policy page.

Guardrails

Flexibility that stays auditable

Both features answer the question leadership always asks: how much, and where is it written down?

  • The Negative Balance Report shows every borrowed day across the company.
  • Unlimited overage appears on the employee profile as a running total.
  • Managers can propose limit changes, but only admins apply them.

More resources

Feature

Balance tracking

Feature

Carry-over

Feature

Grant models

Ready to get started?

Give us a call. We'll show you how borrowed days and unlimited policies stay visible, limited, and audit-ready.

Balance Tracking

One PTO balance every role can trust.

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Reset Cycles

When your leave year starts and ends.

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Frequently asked questions

How does unlimited PTO work here?
The yearly allotment turns into a guaranteed base. Anything beyond it is approved by a manager and tracked as overage, so approval is recorded without consuming a fixed balance. Unlimited means no hard cap, not no record.
Can a PTO balance go negative on purpose?
Yes, when the leave type allows it. Admins set a maximum overdraft as fixed days or a percentage of the allocation, and requests beyond that floor are blocked for everyone, at submission and at approval.
What happens to borrowed days at year-end?
The leave type's reconciliation strategy decides: auto deduct repays the debt from the new allotment, forgive erases it, and charge back keeps it recorded so payroll can settle it outside the app.
Can a leave type be both unlimited and allow negative balances?
No. An unlimited balance cannot be overdrawn, so the two settings exclude each other. Different leave types in the same company can each use a different option.
Is unlimited PTO the same as unlimited sick days?
No. Sick leave is a separate, always-unlimited category by system rule. Unlimited PTO is a choice you make per leave type, with a guaranteed base and tracked overage.