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ESEN

The employment rules
that are not settled.

Some figures on this site come from a reading that is not the only defensible one; others come from a value no document fixes. They are all here, separated by which of the two is wrong with them, with what LoanPilot applies, why, and the document where it can be checked.

✓El Salvador rules · Sources verified on 16 August 2026
00

A calculator that cannot disagree with itself

WHY THIS PAGE EXISTS

Salvadoran law does not always say one thing. Sometimes a text and the ministry's practice diverge; sometimes no article fixes the figure the calculation needs. Hiding that produces a number that looks firmer than it is, and that false firmness is what costs somebody money across a negotiating table.

How to read each entry

DISPUTEDTwo defensible readings: a text and an official practice that differ, or two articles that read against each other. One of them is applied.
UNSOURCEDNo document fixes the value. There are no two readings to set against each other: there is a silence, and a figure this project chose.
THE ONE APPLIEDOf the two readings, the one that produces the figure on screen. Marked as applied, never as correct.
BOTH MARKSOne entry can carry DISPUTED and UNSOURCED at once, as the Quincena 25 does: part of the rule reads two ways and another part is fixed by no text at all. It appears among the rules in dispute, because the disagreement is what has to be decided first.

Every entry is generated from the repository's rule registry, and the section it lands in comes from the flag the rule carries: there is no separate list for anyone to forget, and no entry that can end up under the wrong heading.

01

Rules in dispute

TWO READINGS, ONE APPLIED

Here there is something to argue about: a text saying one thing and an official practice doing another, or two articles that do not read alike. Both readings appear in the same voice, and the one applied is marked as applied, not as correct.

01
DISPUTED

Is the part-year of vacation owed to someone who resigns?

Código de Trabajo art. 187

What is at stake

The days run since the last anniversary, paid with the 30% surcharge. On a resignation two months past the anniversary that is 2.5 days of vacation: around $45 at the commerce minimum wage ($403 a month), around $110 on a salary of $1,000.

The two readings

The one it does not applyA text says so

The text of article 187

The article grants the proportional part "cuando se declare terminado un contrato de trabajo con responsabilidad para el patrono, o cuando el trabajador fuere despedido de hecho sin causa legal", and the next sentence names what someone whose contract ends without employer responsibility does keep: the vacation of the continuous year already completed. The fraction of the year under way is not in that second sentence. Read this way, a worker who resigns does not take it.

The one LoanPilot appliesThe institution does so

What the MTPS service does

The official statement this calculation reconciles against is a voluntary resignation — its $26.88 daily base is two daily minimum wages, the cap in article 8 of the resignation law, and the benefit runs at 15 days a year — and it still prints $90.16 of proportional vacation for the 54 days past the last anniversary. The ministry pays the fraction on a resignation.

Why

There is evidence to follow here, and it is followed. The MTPS statement is a document with figures on it, and this calculation reproduces it to the cent: applying the literal text would erase that $90.16 line and the site would stop agreeing with the official service on every resignation. Where a text and the ministry's practice differ, this calculator applies the practice and names the text.

02
DISPUTED

Which step of article 198 applies to someone who leaves before 20 October?

Código de Trabajo arts. 197, 198 y 202

What is at stake

The scale jumps from 15 to 19 days at three years, and from 19 to 21 at ten. But the step is never worth its whole self, because it only runs over the fraction of the cycle already worked: on a departure on 5 October with the third anniversary ten days later it is 3.3 days, or around $109 on a salary of $1,000. It changes nothing except for someone whose contract ends in the stretch of the year where one of those anniversaries would fall.

The two readings

The one LoanPilot appliesThe institution does so

Length of service at the last day worked

The step the worker had actually completed when the contract ended. It is what the MTPS calculation service does: for a departure on 5 October 2026 with a start date of 15 October 2023 — two completed years that day, three had they reached the qualifying date — the ministry prints $367.40, which is fifteen days of scale and not nineteen. It is also the reading that never pays for a step nobody reached.

The one it does not applyNothing backs it

Length of service at 20 October

The step the worker would have held on the date article 197 measures service at. Because the qualifying date always falls after the departure in these cases, this reading is never lower: it is always the larger of the two figures.

Why

No article of chapter VII says which day the scale is read at for a contract that ended before the qualifying date: article 197 measures service at that date, and article 202 grants the leaver the part "proporcional al tiempo trabajado" without saying which scale the proportion is of. What there is, is what the ministry does, checked against its calculator in August 2026: it reads the scale on the last day worked. That matches the reading this site already applied, and now something more than caution supports it. The rule stays published here because a practice is not a text and the text still does not say it; where the two dates fall on different steps the calculator shows both figures, claiming neither. The same ministry reads the closed cycle's scale on the day that cycle closed, which is the same rule said another way: it is read on the last day of the period being paid.

03
DISPUTEDUNSOURCED

Who is owed the Quincena 25 when their contract ends?

Ley Especial Quincena Veinticinco (D.L. 499 del 14 de enero de 2026) arts. 1 y 3

What is at stake

Up to half a monthly salary. For someone at the $1,500 ceiling, the gap between the two readings reaches $750 in a figure people take into a negotiation.

The two readings

The one LoanPilot appliesA text says so

Restrictive: the January window

Article 3 grants the benefit to someone whose contract ends "antes del veinticinco de enero o en esa misma fecha", which is the day article 1 makes the payment fall due. It is a protection against being let go days before payday: outside that window nothing is owed. It has the same shape as article 202, which anchors the year-end bonus to its own qualifying date rather than granting it all year round.

The one it does not applyA text says so

Broad: the reference to the bonus rules

The sentence that follows refers the reader to "las disposiciones establecidas para el goce de la prima anual en concepto de aguinaldo […] o la parte proporcional, según corresponda", and that reads like article 202: a proportional share on any dismissal in the cycle, not only on January ones.

Why

There is no practice to follow here: the law is from January 2026 and its first cycle was voluntary for private employers, so nobody has formed a criterion yet. What settles it is that paying a proportion outside the window requires an accrual period and the decree fixes none — article 2 keys the amount to the salary "al momento en que la prestación se materialice", not to a period — and that the error runs one way: over-stating this line is hundreds of dollars in a figure somebody carries into a negotiation. It is the opposite decision to article 187's, and the difference is that there an official statement exists and here there is nothing. Separately, THE DAY THE WINDOW OPENS is in no text: it is bounded here at the 1st of that same January, and any other lower bound would be just as invented. Only the 25th comes from article 3.

02

Assumptions with no source

THE LAW IS SILENT

Here there are no two readings to set against each other. No text fixes the value, the calculation needs one anyway, and this project chose it. Each entry says how far that choice travels, because that is what decides how much it matters.

01
UNSOURCED

How many days is a monthly salary divided by to get a daily one?

Código de Trabajo arts. 142 y 183 (ninguno fija el divisor)

How far it travels

It is the widest-reaching assumption on the site. Every daily figure passes through it: severance, the resignation benefit, vacation, the year-end bonus and every overtime hour, because the hour is derived from the day. Moving it to the 365/12 the minimum-wage decree uses lowers each of those lines by 1.4% — on a salary of $1,000 the day goes from $33.33 to $32.88 — and that 1.4% runs through all of them at once, not through one.

What the texts say, and where they stopNo document fixes it

Article 183 fixes the base — "el salario básico que devengue", for pay stipulated by unit of time — and names no divisor. Article 142 defines the daily wage in the other direction: the agreed hourly rate times the hours of the ordinary shift. Neither says what a monthly salary is divided by, and the minimum-wage decree uses 30.42 for its own monthly equivalent without ordering that number to be used here.

What LoanPilot appliesThe institution does so

Thirty. It does not come from a text: it comes from the MTPS statement this project reproduces to the cent. At 937.54/30, the proportional vacation of 54 days gives the $90.16 the official document prints; at 30.42 it would give $88.92 and the site would stop agreeing with the ministry.

Why

Because there is an official figure to anchor it to, and anchoring to something checkable beats picking the number that looks most reasonable. It is the same decision as article 187's: where the text is silent and the ministry acts, the ministry is followed and the page says that is what is happening. The difference is that there two readings exist and here there are none — nobody claims the law says 30, and this project does not claim it either. If a decree or a published criterion fixed the divisor, the document would govern and this entry would disappear.

02
UNSOURCED

What period does the proportional share of the year-end bonus run over?

Sin norma que lo fije: arts. 196-202 no definen el período de devengo; el ciclo lo declara el servicio de cálculo del MTPS

How far it travels

Every proportional bonus on the site, and the shape of the answer itself. A settlement can owe two things at once — the whole bonus of the cycle that closed on 11 December and was never handed over, plus the fraction of the one that opened the next day — which is why the calculator shows two lines where it once showed one: on a departure on 30 June 2026, with eleven years of service and a salary of $1,000, that is around $700 for the closed cycle and around $385 for the running one. Moving the opening date moves the second line entire, and with it every proportional bonus this site calculates.

What the texts say, and where they stopNo document fixes it

Articles 196 to 202 fix the qualifying date and the payment window, and order the part "proporcional al tiempo trabajado" to be paid. None of them says what period that proportion runs over. The whole chapter can be read without finding the day the bonus starts to accrue.

What LoanPilot appliesThe institution does so

From 12 December to 11 December, because that is what the MTPS calculation service declares: every row it returns prints the period it covers — "12/12/2024 - 11/12/2025" for the closed cycle and "12/12/2025 - 30/06/2026" for the running one. It is not this project's reading: it is the date the ministry prints on the document.

Why

Because an official document fixes it, and following that beats picking the date that looks most reasonable. It is the same decision as article 187's and the divisor's: where the text is silent and the ministry acts, the ministry is followed and the page says so. Until August 2026 this site applied the calendar year and claimed MTPS support for it; that was an inference from a publication about the amount of an anticipated payment, not its period, and the backing was overstated. It was corrected by running five cases through the ministry's calculator and reading the cycle off the output. If a decree or a published criterion fixed the period, the document would govern and this entry would disappear.

What would change this

A decree, a reform, or a published criterion from the institution that administers the rule. Nothing else: not a press report, not an opinion, not what one payroll department happens to do. If you have an official document that settles any of these, the project is open and it can be reported.

01Report a difference or contribute a source↗02See the rule registry on GitHub↗