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Nobody hands a freelancer paid vacation, holidays, or sick days. Every week you take off earns nothing — so the weeks you do work have to fund it. This sizes your time-off fund and shows the slice of every payment to bank, or the rate uplift that covers it.
Nothing you type leaves your browser. This is general guidance, not tax or financial advice — talk to a professional about your situation.
When you have a salaried job, paid time off is invisible money. You take two weeks in the summer, a week at the holidays, and a few sick days, and your paycheck doesn't flinch — your employer quietly spread the cost of those weeks across the year. Freelancing, that safety net is gone. A week you don't work is a week you don't earn, full stop. If you don't plan for it, "taking a vacation" turns into a month of guilt and a thinner bank account, and "getting the flu" becomes a genuine financial event.
The fix is simple once you see it: the weeks you work have to carry the weeks you don't. If you want to take W weeks off, you only have 52 − W working weeks to earn a full year's income — so a slice of every payment needs to go into a time-off fund you draw from while you're away. This calculator sizes that fund and shows you the slice.
That last line is the one to tape to your monitor. Take four weeks off out of fifty-two and you bank 4 ÷ 52 ≈ 7.7% of everything you're paid; six weeks is 11.5%. It doesn't depend on what you charge — it's pure arithmetic about how much of the year you want to be off.
There are two honest ways to cover time off, and they're two views of one number. The first is to set aside a percentage of each invoice into a separate "time-off" savings account and pay yourself from it during your weeks away. The second is to raise your rate so the working weeks generate the whole year's income on their own. The set-aside share (weeks off ÷ 52) and the rate uplift (weeks off ÷ working weeks) come out as slightly different percentages — 7.7% versus 8.3% for four weeks — but they fund the exact same fund. The set-aside is a percentage of the larger, time-off-inclusive total; the uplift is a percentage increase on the smaller "no time off" rate. Use whichever is easier to stick to. Many freelancers do both: price the time off into the rate and sweep a fixed percentage into savings as a backstop.
Everything you'd want to be paid for but won't be billing during. That's vacation, but also public holidays (the US has around ten), the days you're too sick to work, and — if it applies to you — parental leave or time for jury duty, conferences, and bereavement. Add them up in weeks. Most full-time employees effectively get five to six weeks of paid non-working time once you count holidays and sick days, which is a fair benchmark to aim for so you're not quietly giving yourself a worse deal than a job would.
Either works — the math is the same — as long as you're consistent about what the fund is replacing. If you enter your take-home, the fund is the after-tax money you'll live on during time off. If you enter your billings (total invoiced), the fund is gross and you'll still owe tax on it like any other income. Most people find it easiest to think in take-home: "I want $60,000 in my pocket this year, and four weeks of it should be spent on a beach."
They fund the identical amount; they're just measured against different baselines. The set-aside (weeks off ÷ 52) is a share of your full, time-off-inclusive income — the pie already includes the vacation slice. The rate uplift (weeks off ÷ working weeks) is the increase over a rate that ignored time off entirely, so it's measured against a smaller number and comes out a touch higher. It's the same relationship as markup versus margin: same dollars, different denominator.
In a separate, named savings account — ideally a high-yield one — that isn't your day-to-day checking. The whole point is that the money is invisible until you need it, so you don't accidentally spend your July vacation in March. Some freelancers fold time off into a single larger buffer alongside taxes and an emergency fund; others keep a dedicated pot. Keeping it separate makes taking the time off feel allowed, which is half the battle.
No — they solve different problems. A time-off fund covers planned absences you choose: vacation, holidays, a few sick days. An emergency fund covers the unplanned — a dry spell with no clients, a big late payment, a broken laptop. Size them separately. This tool handles the planned side; the Emergency Fund Calculator handles the rest.
No. Every calculation runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent to a server or stored. The link in your address bar updates so you can bookmark or share a scenario, but that link only contains the numbers you chose.
Keep going
Set a rate that already prices in time off, taxes, and expenses from the take-home you want.
See how your weeks off shrink the billable hours — and the utilization rate — your year actually has.
Size the cash safety net for the unplanned gaps — the companion to your time-off fund.