Small-Business PTO Benchmarks: 2026 BLS Data

Benchmark average PTO for small business by comparing vacation, sick leave, and paid holidays separately. In March 2026, paid vacation was available to 71% of private-industry workers at establishments with 1–49 workers, compared with 89% at establishments with 100 or more, an 18-percentage-point gap. BLS Table 6, private-industry establishment-size rows.

The national vacation allowance averaged 11 days after one year of service. That is a national private-industry reference, not an average measured specifically for small businesses. BLS vacation-and-sick-days chart table.

Average vacation time for small business: separate the measures¶

Start with the measure that answers your question. Access tells you what share of workers are offered a benefit. Allowance tells you how much time the benefit provides. The size comparisons below measure access; the service-based chart measures national allowances. They cannot be swapped to produce a small-business vacation-day average.

“Small” here describes the workplace in the BLS establishment-size categories. An establishment can be a branch of a larger company. These figures therefore do not describe only independently owned small businesses. BLS release, technical note on establishment classification.

The BLS source material used here does not provide vacation-day means by establishment size or an average number of paid holidays. Those figures are left out. Use the access gap to understand the small-workplace comparison and the national allowance chart to set a starting point for your offer.

PTO by years of service: how does the allowance change?¶

National private-industry vacation allowances average 11 days after one year, 16 after five, 18 after ten, and 20 after twenty. Use the service milestone that matches the employee when comparing an offer. These are vacation allowances, not combined PTO banks or a record of how much leave employees actually took. BLS chart table.

After 1 year

11

After 5 years

16

After 10 years

18

After 20 years

20

Source: BLS, Average number of sick and vacation days by length of service, March 2026

Show table

The same chart reports seven sick days at each listed service milestone for private industry. Keep that benefit separate when comparing an all-purpose bank with a vacation-only policy. A combined bank has to explain how illness and planned vacations share the allowance; the vacation figure alone does not answer that question. BLS vacation-and-sick-days chart table.

The small-business access gap¶

Offering paid vacation is a useful place to start before arguing over the exact allowance. The access comparison shows the difference between smaller and larger workplaces; it does not say that every employer in either group follows the same policy. Use it to benchmark whether the benefit exists, then examine its terms.

• 1 to 49 workers
• 100 workers or more

Paid vacation

71%

89%

Paid holidays

73%

91%

Paid sick leave

75%

89%

Source: BLS, Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2026, Table 6

Show table

Using the broader 1–99-worker category, 72% had access to paid vacation, 74% to paid sick leave, and 73% to paid holidays. Vacation access in that group was 17 percentage points below the 100-or-more-worker group. The narrower and broader small-workplace categories should not be treated as interchangeable. BLS Table 6, private-industry establishment-size rows.

Paid holidays are an access benchmark here¶

Paid holidays were available to 73% of private-industry workers in establishments with 1–49 workers, compared with 91% in establishments with 100 or more. Those percentages do not tell you how many paid closure days an employer offers. Publish your actual closure calendar alongside the vacation allowance so employees can compare both. BLS Table 6, private-industry paid-holidays column.

Match the employee group before comparing offers¶

Read the establishment-size figures alongside work status. A benchmark covering all workers can differ from the reference you need for a full-time hire. The table below (BLS Table 6) shows the national work-status comparison; it does not isolate full-time employees at small establishments.

For a founder or ops lead, the practical lesson is to write eligibility clearly. Compare the same employment group and benefit type before deciding that an allowance is generous or thin. A national all-worker access rate is not an allowance target for an individual employee.

Average PTO by industry: use the available access data¶

The selected industry rows below, from BLS Table 6, report access, not average days of PTO. They help show how benefits differ across broad groups. Do not turn a high access rate into a claim about a generous allowance, or use an industry label as proof of what a particular candidate's competing offer includes.

These are selected, overlapping BLS groups. Hospitals sit within a broader health-care grouping, for example. Treat the rows as separate comparisons rather than adding them together or ranking them as a complete list of industries.

What should a small business offer?¶

Consider 15 annual vacation days at the one-year checkpoint and 20 at five years, with sick leave and paid closures stated separately. This is Cabana's recommendation, not a measured small-business average. Each proposed allowance sits four days above the corresponding national vacation reference. Baseline: BLS chart table.

That margin is a deliberate offer choice, not a proven hiring advantage or a percentile claim. Choose an allowance you can support with coverage and consistent approvals. State how the policy works before the first service checkpoint rather than leaving a new hire to guess.

Use the Average PTO for small businesses guide for the policy discussion and the Free PTO accrual calculator to translate the chosen allowance into an earning schedule.

Keep the offer and the ongoing record aligned¶

Cabana's PTO tracking software for small teams keeps allowances, accrued time, usage, and pending requests in the same record. Employees request time off and check balances in Slack or Microsoft Teams, and managers approve or deny from the message. Set the benefit first, then make its balance understandable.

Methodology and how to cite this benchmark¶

Reference month: March 2026. Release date: September 25, 2026. Last checked: October 27, 2026. The BLS release and March publication identify the reporting period. This page uses private-industry estimates from the National Compensation Survey; it does not combine them with state and local government or broader civilian figures.

Percentages retain the precision published in Table 6, and days retain the precision in the service-requirement chart table. No missing values are replaced with zero. Percentage-point gaps subtract the published access percentages; they are not relative percentage changes.

This is a snapshot of benefit access and reported allowances. It does not measure days actually taken, rank an offer against a percentile distribution, or establish a legal entitlement. Statistical benchmarks and an employment-policy review answer different questions.

Suggested citation: Cabana, “Average PTO for Small Business: BLS Benchmarks,” https://cabanapto.com/pto-benchmark, checked October 27, 2026. Based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey, March 2026: Table 6, “Selected paid leave benefits: Access,” and the chart data table, “Paid leave benefits: Average number of sick and vacation days by length of service requirement.”

When reusing a figure, keep its benefit type, worker population, service requirement or establishment-size group, and reference month with the citation. Link the exact BLS table as well as this page so readers can verify it.

Download the data: pto-benchmark-2026.csv (every figure on this page, with its BLS source URL).