Spend your annual leave smartly: pick Singapore, Malaysia (and your state) or Hong Kong and a year, enter your leave days, and the tool works out the plan that gets you the most days away — leave placed around public holidays and weekends — plus the longest single break for one to five leave days, as a shareable plan card.
Leave Optimizer (SG / MY / HK)
Loading the holiday lists…
Holiday lists: Singapore’s MOM, the Hong Kong Government and Labour Department, and the federal and state table of Malaysia’s Prime Minister’s Department (BKPP). A plan, not an approval — confirm any leave with your employer.
How to use
Pick where you work and the year
Choose Singapore, Malaysia or Hong Kong and the year (2026 or 2027). In Malaysia pick your state as well — the holidays, and even the weekend, differ by state. In Hong Kong choose general holidays or statutory holidays only, whichever your contract gives.
Enter your leave days
Type the number of annual-leave days you want to plan with (say 14).
Read your plan
Each row is one break: its dates, the exact days to take as leave, and how many days in a row you are away. Below it is the longest single break for one to five leave days. Dates marked † or * carry a note.
Download or share
Tap “Download plan” to save the image, or “Share” to send it to colleagues. Reminder: this is for planning — confirm any actual leave through your company and employer.
Leave Optimizer: fewest leave days, longest breaks
Your company gives you only so many days of annual leave a year — but arranged carefully, they stretch a long way. The trick is called leave bridging: taking leave on the working days next to public holidays and weekends, so a handful of leave days join into a long continuous break. Counting it out on a calendar yourself is fiddly and easy to get wrong. This tool does it for you: pick where you work (and your state, in Malaysia) and a year, enter your leave days, and it works out the plan that gets you the most days away, naming the exact days to take.
How it works out the plan
The tool first marks every day of the year as “off” (a weekend or public holiday) or “work”, using the weekend where you work: Saturday and Sunday in most places, Friday and Saturday in Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu. A run of days off in a row is a break. It then checks every way of spending your leave — bridging a gap between two stretches of days off, or extending a long weekend at either end — and scores a plan by the total number of days in breaks that contain at least one leave day and at least one public holiday. It returns the highest-scoring plan within your budget; where two plans tie, it takes the one that uses fewer leave days. Separately, it lists the longest single break one to five leave days can buy. Those are two different questions: “how many days away in total” favours several long weekends, “how long can one trip be” favours spending everything on one break.
“The holiday is fixed by the calendar; the days either side of it are the ones you choose.”
Why Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong reward planning
A holiday that falls mid-week is a natural bridge, and in 2027 the lunar and Islamic calendars bunch several together: Hari Raya Haji and Vesak Day are three days apart in May in Singapore and Malaysia, and Hong Kong has Good Friday to Easter Monday. The tool ships each place’s official list — MOM’s for Singapore; the Hong Kong Government’s general holidays, or the statutory ones only if that is what your contract gives; and for Malaysia the federal and state table published by the Prime Minister’s Department (BKPP), state by state — for 2026 and 2027. Within the current year it plans from tomorrow onwards, so it never spends leave on a date that has passed.
Treat it as a planning helper
The tool gives planning suggestions, not approvals. Leave entitlements, request processes and blackout periods differ by employer. In Hong Kong the Employment Ordinance lets the employer appoint the time of statutory annual leave after consulting the employee, and in Malaysia the Employment Act 1955 lets the employer name six of the eleven public holidays it must give. Your contract and company policy decide. The tool runs locally in your browser and collects and stores nothing.
A Tuesday or Thursday holiday buys four days for one
With a Saturday–Sunday weekend, a holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday is the best to bridge: one leave day (the Monday or Friday) buys four days off in a row.
A holiday on a Sunday moves in all three places, by different rules: Singapore makes the next day a holiday (Holidays Act 1998 s.4(2)); Hong Kong names the substitute in its published list; Malaysia’s Holidays Act 1951 s.3 moves it to the next day that is not already a holiday — and where the weekly holiday is Friday, as in Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu, it is a Friday holiday that moves.
Hong Kong has 17 general holidays in 2027 but 15 statutory ones. The Employment Ordinance owes the 15 to every employee; Good Friday and the day after it are the difference, and whether you get them depends on your contract. Good Friday becomes statutory in 2028, and the day after it in 2030.
Malaysia is sixteen calendars, not one. BKPP’s 2027 table has 52 rows: 1 January is a state holiday not observed in Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis or Terengganu, and Deepavali is not a Sarawak holiday. Pick your state and the tool uses its list and its weekend.
The best single leave day in the region in 2027 is in Kelantan and Terengganu: with a Friday–Saturday weekend, Wednesday 19 May joins Hari Arafah, both days of Hari Raya Qurban and Wesak into nine days off, 14–22 May.
Singapore has three public holidays on a Saturday in 2027: the first day of Chinese New Year, Labour Day and Christmas Day. Under Employment Act s.88(1)(c) the employer chooses between a day off in lieu and a day’s pay, so the tool counts neither.
Hong Kong’s statutory annual leave is granted as one unbroken period by default. If you ask, up to 3 days of an entitlement of 10 days or fewer may be taken separately, and the employer appoints the time after consultation (Labour Department, Concise Guide to the Employment Ordinance).
Chinese New Year 2027 starts on Saturday 6 February. Singapore adds Monday 8 February in lieu of the Sunday second day; Hong Kong’s list skips the Sunday and runs 8–9 February; in Malaysia’s Saturday–Sunday states 8 February is a replacement day that follows from Holidays Act s.3 (in Johor it is already Awal Ramadan, so the replacement moves to the 9th) and is not in BKPP’s table.
Malaysia’s Employment Act 1955 s.60D guarantees 11 of the gazetted public holidays. Five are named — National Day, the Agong’s birthday, the Ruler’s or Yang di-Pertua Negeri’s birthday (or Federal Territory Day), Workers’ Day and Malaysia Day — and the employer picks the other six and must post them before the year begins.
Breaks are counted once: two bridges around the same holiday make one long break, and the days in between are never counted twice.
The whole tool runs locally in your browser; the holiday data loads once, and the leave figure you enter is never uploaded or stored.
Frequently Asked Questions
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It means taking your leave on the working days next to public holidays and weekends so the days off join into one stretch. If Tuesday is a holiday, your weekend is Saturday–Sunday and you also take the Monday, you are off Saturday through Tuesday — 1 leave day for a 4-day break.
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Singapore uses MOM’s gazetted list, Hong Kong the Government’s general-holiday list and the Labour Department’s statutory list, and Malaysia the federal and state table the Prime Minister’s Department (BKPP) published in August 2026 for 2027 (and its table for 2026). BKPP marks Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Qurban, Deepavali and Awal Ramadan as subject to change, and the tool flags them with *. Malaysian replacement days are not in BKPP’s table; the tool derives them from Holidays Act 1951 s.3 and flags them with †.
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Every holiday BKPP lists for the state you pick, federal and state alike, plus replacement days derived from Holidays Act s.3. States differ a lot: 1 January is not a holiday in Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis or Terengganu, Deepavali is not one in Sarawak, and Thaipusam is observed in only seven states and territories. A private-sector employee is owed 11 of these under Employment Act 1955 s.60D, six of them chosen by the employer, so check which ones your employer gives.
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It scores a plan by the total number of days in breaks that contain at least one leave day and at least one public holiday, checks every placement of your leave — bridging a gap, or extending a long weekend at either end — and returns the plan with the highest score. Where two plans tie, it takes the one that uses fewer leave days. That score favours several long weekends; the list underneath answers the other question, the longest single break for one to five leave days.
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Only when no further leave day can lengthen a break that contains a public holiday — usually late in the current year, when the tool plans from tomorrow and few holidays remain. It shows how many days are left over.
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Saturday and Sunday, except Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu, which rest on Friday and Saturday. That list comes from a National Security Council (MKN) notice of 31 December 2024 reporting Johor’s return to a Saturday–Sunday weekend; it is a government news item, not a state gazette. Shift work and six-day weeks are not modelled.
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Singapore: an Employment Act employee gets a day off in lieu or a day’s pay, at the employer’s choice (s.88(1)(c)). Malaysia: Holidays Act s.3 moves only a holiday on the weekly holiday (Sunday, or Friday), so a Saturday holiday is not replaced. Hong Kong: the published lists add no substitute for a Saturday; under the Employment Ordinance a statutory holiday that falls on your rest day moves to the next day. The tool counts none of these extra days.
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No, and it can’t guarantee anything. It’s a planning reference based on public holidays. Whether you can take specific days depends on company policy, team rota and blackout periods, and needs your request and your manager’s approval. Treat it as a “which days to watch” hint, then book early.
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No. It’s used only for the live calculation — never uploaded, written to the URL, or saved to localStorage. The whole tool runs locally in your browser and clears on refresh.
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It holds 2026 and 2027, and within the current year plans only from tomorrow. From October it opens on the next year. Later years are added once each government publishes its list.
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Completely free, no signup, as many runs as you like. It all happens in your browser, instantly.
Pick up where you left off
Stored only in this browser — never sent to our servers.