Probation, notice periods and holidays: your rights in Liechtenstein

Probation is the opening phase of an employment relationship, during which both sides can terminate at much shorter notice. By law it lasts one month in Liechtenstein. The contract may extend it in writing, but no further than three months.

In practice many contracts state three months — that is the legal maximum, not the statutory default. If your contract says nothing about probation, the one month applies. During probation the notice period is seven days for both sides.

So read your contract carefully: probation and notice period are the two points that cause the most misunderstandings in a first year.

After probation the period depends on your years of service with the same employer. It applies equally to both sides:

• 1st year of service: one month.
• 2nd to 9th year: two months.
• From the 10th year: three months.

The period always runs to the end of a calendar month. If you give notice on 10 March in your second year of service, your employment ends on 31 May, not 10 May. This rule is easy to miss and shifts your last working day by several weeks.

An open-ended employment relationship can generally be terminated without stating reasons, as long as the notice period is observed. Longer periods may be agreed in your contract or a collective agreement.

If you are unable to work through no fault of your own — illness or accident, for example — a protected period applies. During it, dismissal by the employer is void. Its length again depends on your years of service:

• 1st year of service: 30 days.
• 2nd to 5th year: 90 days.
• From the 6th year: 180 days.

The protection covers dismissal by the employer only. You can still resign while ill. If a notice already given falls into a protected period, the end of the employment relationship shifts accordingly.

The statutory minimum is four weeks of holiday per year of service. If you are under 20, it is five weeks. Many employers and collective agreements grant more — the statutory figure is a floor, not a benchmark.

On top of that come the public holidays, which in employment law rank equal to Sundays. Liechtenstein counts thirteen of them — noticeably more than most Swiss cantons and Austrian states:

• Start of the year: New Year's Day (1 January) and Epiphany (6 January).
• Spring: Easter Monday, Labour Day (1 May), Ascension, Whit Monday and Corpus Christi.
• Late summer: Assumption of Mary (15 August, also the national holiday) and Nativity of Mary (8 September).
• End of the year: All Saints' Day (1 November), Immaculate Conception (8 December), Christmas Day (25 December) and St Stephen's Day (26 December).

The figures above are statutory minimums. A collective agreement or your personal contract can give you more — longer holidays, shorter periods in your favour, additional allowances. Less than the law provides cannot be agreed.

Several Liechtenstein industries are covered by generally binding collective agreements, among them construction, hospitality and the service sector. Whether one applies to you depends on the employer and the role — when in doubt, ask the employees' association or your employer directly.

This article gives an overview and does not replace legal advice. In a concrete dispute it is worth consulting an advice centre before signing anything.

Knowing your own notice period lets you plan a move cleanly: with two months' notice, an offer should be in hand roughly ten weeks before your intended start date. For what employers in Liechtenstein typically pay, see salaries in Liechtenstein, and for what is left after deductions, use the cross-border salary calculator.

For the application itself, applying in Liechtenstein will help. Or go straight to what is open: all jobs in Liechtenstein.