Time off to look for a new job during the notice period, by country
Five of the ingested statutes give an employee under notice time to look for a job, and they measure it in four different ways. Spain fixes it at six hours a week with pay, Austria at one fifth of the weekly working time with pay, while Germany and Alsace-Moselle in France leave it to a reasonable or appropriate amount, and the UK limits it to redundancy dismissals of employees with two years of service and pays at the hourly rate. Only the UK, Spain and Austria say in the text that pay continues.
| Country | Time allowed | Paid? | Who is entitled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | At least one fifth of the regular weekly working hours, each week | Yes, without reduction of pay | Salaried employees dismissed by the employer, on request |
| Germany | Reasonable time | Anyone in a continuing service relationship after notice, on request | |
| Spain | 6 hours a week | Yes, without loss of pay | Workers dismissed for objective reasons, during the 15-day notice period |
| France | Reasonable time | Employees in Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin, on request, during notice | |
| United Kingdom | Reasonable time off during working hours | Yes, at the appropriate hourly rate | Employees given notice of dismissal by reason of redundancy, with 2 years of continuous employment |
Country by country
Austria
- Rule
- Angestelltengesetz Art. 1 § 22
- Applies to salaried employees (Angestellte) when the employer gives notice, during the notice period. It does not apply to a person with a statutory pension entitlement for whom a provisional health-insurance certificate has been issued. A collective agreement may set a different rule.
Bei Kündigung durch den Dienstgeber ist dem Angestellten während der Kündigungsfrist auf sein Verlangen wöchentlich mindestens ein Fünftel der regelmäßigen wöchentlichen Arbeitszeit ohne Schmälerung des Entgelts freizugeben.Durch Kollektivvertrag können abweichende Regelungen getroffen werden. Germany
- Rule
- BGB § 629
- The statute does not say whether the time is paid, so that column is left empty. It applies after notice has been given in a continuing service relationship (Dienstverhältnis) and the employee must ask for the time.
hat der Dienstberechtigte dem Verpflichteten auf Verlangen angemessene Zeit zum Aufsuchen eines anderen Dienstverhältnisses zu gewähren Spain
- Rule
- Estatuto de los Trabajadores art. 53
- Article 53 governs dismissal for objective causes, where the employer must give fifteen days of notice. The six-hour weekly licence runs during that notice period. The article is not quoted here for other forms of termination.
Concesión de un plazo de preaviso de quince díasDurante el periodo de preaviso el trabajador, o su representante legal si se trata de una persona con discapacidad que lo tuviera, tendrá derecho, sin pérdida de su retribución, a una licencia de seis horas semanales con el fin de buscar nuevo empleo. France
- Rule
- Code du travail L1234-17
- The article sits in the subsection with special rules for the Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments, so it is not a rule for the rest of France. It does not say whether the time is paid.
Pendant le préavis, l'employeur accorde au salarié qui le demande un délai raisonnable pour rechercher un nouvel emploi. United Kingdom
- Rule
- Employment Rights Act 1996 ss 52-53
- Only redundancy dismissals qualify, and the employee must have two years of continuous employment when the notice expires. The time may also be used to arrange training. If the employer unreasonably refuses, the employee is owed the pay for the time they would have had.
An employee who is given notice of dismissal by reason of redundancy is entitled to be permitted by his employer to take reasonable time off during the employee’s working hours before the end of his noticecontinuously employed for a period of two years or more is entitled to be paid remuneration by his employer for the period of absence at the appropriate hourly rate Countries not in this table yet
The United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Japan are left out: a search of their ingested acts found no provision giving time off to look for work during notice. That does not show that no such right exists elsewhere in their law.
How this table was built
Every row is taken from the official, consolidated text of the statute, which LawAsked loads from each government’s legislation service.
Each figure is tied to a passage quoted word for word from that text. When the page is served, it checks that every quoted passage is still in the current text of a law that is in force; if a law is amended and its wording changes, that row is hidden until a person reviews it again.
The table shows the statutory minimum only. Collective agreements, awards and individual contracts often give more than the statute, and some countries let a collective agreement set different terms.
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LawAsked, “Time off to look for a new job during the notice period, by country”, https://lawasked.com/guides/job-search-time-off (reviewed October 25, 2026).
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