How employment ends
Unjustified dismissal and voluntary resignation have different requirements and benefits.
Severance calculator
When employment ends.
Estimate severance or resignation benefit, vacation, year-end bonus and unpaid salary with auditable rules.
✓El Salvador rules · Sources verified on 14 August 2026
01
Employment details
Private sector governed by the Labor Code
How employment endsPick "resignation" only if leaving was your own decision. Everything else is priced as a dismissal: mutual agreement, company closure, staff reduction, reduced work. We checked this against the MTPS service in August 2026 — a termination by mutual agreement returns exactly the same figure as a dismissal — and the gap is large: on a $900 salary with six years of service it is $5,851 against $2,621, because a resignation is governed by Law 592, which pays 15 days a year capped at two daily minimum wages, and a dismissal by article 58, which pays 30 capped at four.
Year-end bonus already collectedThe bonus accrues from 12 December to 11 December. "The previous cycle's" is the one that closed last 11 December and was collected in its window; taking it off leaves only what the running cycle has accrued. "An advance" appears only when the departure falls between 20 October and 11 December, which is when the law allows an unclosed cycle to be paid early: if that happened, the employer had to hand over the whole of it and nothing of that cycle is left to accrue.
Gross estimate
Estimated gross total$5,203.20Estimated service: 5 years
Severance / benefit$4,504.94
Complete-period vacation + 30%$0.000.00 days
Proportional vacation + 30%$1.600.04 days
Proportional year-end bonus$396.6613.22 days
Unpaid salary$300.00
Daily salary used for the benefit$30.00
Vacation days included0.04Vacation + 30%: $1.60
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Article 58 grants 30 days per year and fractions, with a 15-day minimum and a cap of four daily minimum wages.
This is a gross estimate. Salary and vacation may have payroll deductions; statutory dismissal and resignation benefits are income-tax exempt. Agreements may improve these minimums.
Sources and rules applied
01Labor Code: articles 58, 140, 177, 187 and 196-202↗02MTPS official calculation service↗03Voluntary Resignation Law: articles 2, 5 and 7-9↗04Executive Decree 12/2025: minimum wage table in force since June 2025↗05MTPS: early payment of the bonus is optional, and the 20 Oct to 20 Dec window↗06Annual paid vacation: articles 177-185 (CSJ)↗
Unsettled rules this calculation touches
These figures do not come from a text that says one thing: some come from a reading that is not the only defensible one, others from a value no document fixes. Each is explained.
01DISPUTEDIs the part-year of vacation owed to someone who resigns?→02DISPUTEDWhich step of article 198 applies to someone who leaves before 20 October?→03DISPUTEDWho is owed the Quincena 25 when their contract ends?→04UNSOURCEDWhat period does the proportional share of the year-end bonus run over?→05UNSOURCEDHow many days is a monthly salary divided by to get a daily one?→
See every unsettled rule →LOANPILOT EMPLOYMENT 101
The pieces of an employment settlement
The total is not a single benefit. Review these variables separately before accepting a calculation.Length of service
Years worked determine severance; voluntary resignation requires at least two continuous years.
Salary base and caps
The benefit uses ordinary daily pay, subject to the statutory cap tied to the sector's minimum wage.
Outstanding benefits
Vacation plus 30%, year-end bonus and unpaid salary are calculated separately from severance.