Calculating the Last Working Day of a Notice Period

Resigning is simple. Working out which day is actually your last is not, because "four weeks' notice" can mean at least three different things and the answer changes what you are owed.

The unit is the whole question

A notice period expressed as a number is meaningless without its unit, and employment agreements use all of them:

• Weeks. Four weeks from a Monday resignation ends on a Sunday, which is not a working day — so the last working day is the Friday before. Whether your entitlement ends Friday or Sunday matters for final pay.
• Months. A calendar month runs to the corresponding date in the next month, with the short-month fallback: notice given on 31 January expires 28 or 29 February. Three months' notice given on 30 November expires 28 February, not 2 March.
• Working days. Less common, but it appears in fixed-term and contractor arrangements. Twenty working days is four weeks only if no public holiday falls inside them.
• Calendar days. Thirty days is not a month, and it is not four weeks either.

Same intention, four different last days, spread across the best part of a week.

When does the notice period start?

Almost always the day after notice is given, not the day itself. Hand in a resignation on Monday with two weeks' notice and the period runs from Tuesday, ending on the Monday a fortnight later. Counting the day of resignation as day one takes a day off your entitlement.

The form of notice matters too. Many agreements require notice in writing, and some specify how it must be delivered. Verbal notice on Friday followed by an email on Monday may well have started the clock on Tuesday, not Saturday. Where the agreement requires written notice, put it in writing on the day you intend the clock to start.

Do public holidays extend the period?

Generally no, if the notice is expressed in weeks or months — the period runs on the calendar regardless of whether you would have been working. Public holidays only extend the period where the notice is expressed in working days.

What holidays do affect is your final pay. A public holiday falling inside a notice period is normally a paid day for anyone who would otherwise have worked it, and that remains true during notice.

Garden leave and payment in lieu

Two mechanisms change what the last working day means without changing the notice period itself.

Garden leave keeps you employed and paid through the notice period but off the premises. Your employment ends on the same date; you simply do not attend. Contractual obligations — confidentiality, exclusivity, restrictions on starting elsewhere — continue throughout, which is usually the point.

Payment in lieu of notice ends employment immediately with a payment covering the notice period. The employment end date is the termination date, not the date notice would have expired. This has consequences well beyond the date: it can change when benefits cease, when restrictive covenants start running, and in some cases the tax treatment of the payment. Most agreements require an express PILON clause for the employer to do this without breaching the contract.

Annual leave during notice

A frequent source of dispute. In many jurisdictions an employer can require you to take accrued annual leave during a notice period, subject to giving the right amount of notice of the leave itself. In others it needs your agreement. Either way, taking leave during notice does not extend the notice period — it runs down your leave balance and your notice simultaneously, which is generally to the employer's advantage.

Accrued but untaken leave is normally paid out at termination. Check whether that payout is calculated to the last working day or to the employment end date, because with garden leave or PILON those can differ.

New Zealand: there is often no statutory minimum

Worth stating plainly because it surprises people. New Zealand employment law does not prescribe a minimum notice period for most employees. It comes from the employment agreement, and where the agreement is silent the standard is "reasonable notice", judged on the role, seniority, length of service and industry practice. That is a legal test rather than a number, and it is one of the few situations where a calculator genuinely cannot help until you have settled on a period.

The NZ notice period calculator covers this case specifically; the general notice period calculator handles weeks, months, business days and calendar days against whichever holiday calendar applies.

Get the date agreed in writing

The practical advice is short. State the intended last day explicitly in the resignation letter — "my last day of employment will be Friday 30 October" — rather than only the notice length. It forces any disagreement about the unit or the start date to surface on day one, when it can be resolved in an email, instead of on the last day, when it is a dispute about final pay.

General information about how notice periods are counted, not legal or employment advice. What governs your notice is your employment agreement and the law of your jurisdiction — check both, and take advice if the end date or your final pay is contested.