Free Excel template
Leave tracker Excel template for 2027
A free annual leave tracker for Excel and Google Sheets. List your team, log each absence, and the file counts the working days for you, skipping weekends and your public holidays. Balances, a 12 month calendar and a day by day who is off view are already built. No signup, no email, no macros.
Free .xlsx, 218 KB, 7 sheets, sample rows included. For up to 30 people.
In Google Sheets: File, Import, Upload, then Replace spreadsheet.
- Free, no signup
- No email wall
- No macros
- Excel, Sheets, LibreOffice
What is inside
Everything a leave tracker spreadsheet needs, already built
Seven sheets, no macros, and sample rows you can clear in a minute.
Working days counted for you
NETWORKDAYS.INTL skips your weekend and your holidays. A half day counts 0.5, and leave that runs into next year counts only the days in this year.
Balances by person
Allowance plus carried over, minus leave taken or booked. Negative balances turn red, and each extra leave type gets its own columns.
12 month calendar
A heat map of days off by person and month, plus a Who is off sheet that shows any month day by day, ready to print.
Drop-downs, not typing
Pick the person, leave type and half day from lists, and dates are checked, so names never drift apart and totals stay right.
Problems flagged in red
A row with the last day before the first day, or a name that is not on your list, is flagged straight away.
Any country, print ready
Choose your own weekend days and paste your own public holidays. Every sheet prints landscape on one page wide.
How to use
Set it up in four steps, about ten minutes
Amber cells are for typing, grey cells are formulas.
Set up the year
On Setup, choose your weekend days and paste your public holidays. Name your leave types and give each an allowance in days.
Add your people
On Employees, enter each person with their allowance and any days carried over from last year.
Log leave as it happens
On Leave log, pick the person and type, then enter the first and last day. Working days appear by themselves.
Read the results
Balances shows who has what left, Year calendar shows the busy months, Who is off shows any month day by day.
Clear the grey sample rows first: select the cells and press Delete. Please do not delete whole rows, so the formulas stay in place.
Under the hood
How it works, and what to watch for
How the working days are counted
Each row on the Leave log uses NETWORKDAYS.INTL with the weekend you chose on Setup and the holiday list next to it....
Each row on the Leave log uses NETWORKDAYS.INTL with the weekend you chose on Setup and the holiday list next to it. A row from Monday to Friday across a public holiday counts 4 days, not 5.
A half day takes 0.5 off the total (the 0.5 is set on Setup). If leave runs into the next year, only the days that fall inside the tracker year are counted, using a monthly split that also feeds the Year calendar.
The Balances sheet adds up those working days per person and leave type, so everything stays in step with the log.
Opening it in Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice
Google Sheets: go to File, Import, Upload, choose the .xlsx, then Replace spreadsheet or Insert new sheet. Every...
Google Sheets: go to File, Import, Upload, choose the .xlsx, then Replace spreadsheet or Insert new sheet. Every function used, including NETWORKDAYS.INTL, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, EOMONTH and INDEX, also exists in Sheets. Drop-downs and conditional formatting come across too.
LibreOffice opens it as is. Apple Numbers can import it, but it does not support every function, so Excel, Sheets or LibreOffice are the safer choices.
Five mistakes that break a leave spreadsheet
Dates typed as text, deleted rows, calendar days instead of working days, missing holidays and stray copies.
- Typing dates as text, so formulas quietly skip them. Use real dates.
- Deleting whole rows instead of clearing cells, which breaks references.
- Counting calendar days instead of working days.
- Forgetting public holidays, so everyone is charged a day they did not need.
- Emailing copies around until nobody knows which file is current.
The drop-downs, date checks and red flags in this template guard against the first three.
Honest limits
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A spreadsheet is a good fit for a small team when one person owns the file. These are the points where it starts to cost more than it saves.
01
Accrual rules
Leave that builds up each month, caps and carry over deadlines each need their own formula, and someone to keep them right when policies change.
What LeaveCalc doesYou set the policy once. Balances build up on their own, with caps and carry over.02
Approvals
In a file, a request is an email or a chat message. Nobody sees what is pending, and the manager edits the log by hand.
What LeaveCalc doesStaff ask through a link, you approve in one click, and the balance and calendar update.03
Several people editing
One shared file, three copies in email, one broken formula. You find out when someone is told the wrong balance.
What LeaveCalc doesOne place for everyone, with the same numbers on every screen.04
Balances people can trust
People ask HR how many days they have left, because nobody wants to open the master file and risk changing it.
What LeaveCalc doesA request shows the days or hours it will use before it is sent, so people know where they stand.
LeaveCalc for Employers keeps requests, approvals, balances and the team calendar in one place. It is free for up to 3 people, and Pro includes a 14-day trial. No card needed.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly
You need four things: a list of employees with their allowances, a log of absences with a first and last day, a formula that counts working days, and a balance per person. The free template above has all four. For the formula, NETWORKDAYS.INTL counts working days between two dates and skips the weekend days and holidays you choose. A balance is the allowance plus days carried over, minus the days taken.
Yes. This one is free, with no signup and no email wall. It tracks annual leave plus five other leave types that you can rename, such as sick leave, unpaid leave and study leave, for up to 30 people.
Use NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start, end, weekend, holidays). In this template the weekend setting and the holiday list come from the Setup sheet, so you do not retype them on every row. If your week is not Monday to Friday, change the weekend setting once and every row follows.
Yes. Go to File, Import, Upload, choose the .xlsx and pick Replace spreadsheet. All the functions it uses exist in Google Sheets, and the drop-downs and colours come across. You can then share it with your team in the usual way.
Choose Half day on a leave row and it counts as 0.5 day. Sick leave is a leave type like any other, with its own columns on Balances. You can give it an allowance or leave it open with no limit.
Enter the days carried over from last year on the Employees sheet. They are added to the allowance on Balances. If your policy caps carry over, apply the cap to the number before you enter it.
A tracker records leave and you do the checking yourself. Software takes the requests, handles approvals, builds up balances by your rules and shows the team calendar. The template is a good start for a small team, and leave tracking software takes over when the file becomes a chore.
Related tools and pages
Outgrown the spreadsheet?
Free for up to 3 people, Pro includes a 14-day trial, no card. Add your team, set your policies, share the link.