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Work and life jubilee bonuses in Slovakia: entitlement, provision and accounting

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In brief

A work or life jubilee bonus is a payment that the employer makes to an employee for work on the occasion of their work anniversary or life anniversary; unless it is paid from after-tax profit or from the social fund, it counts as wages (§ 118(3) of the Labour Code). The Labour Code does not create an entitlement to it; wage conditions are agreed in a collective agreement or in the employment contract (§ 119(2)). In the public service and the civil service, the employer may pay a bonus on reaching 50 and 60 years of age of up to the functional salary (§ 20 of Act No. 553/2003 Coll., § 142 of Act No. 55/2017 Coll.). The accounting procedures for entrepreneurs list the payment of benefits on life and work jubilees among the employee benefits for which a provision is made (§ 19(7)(s) of Measure No. 23054/2002-92).

Entitlement
collective agreement or employment contract
Public service
up to 1 functional salary at 50 and 60 years of age
IAS 19
other long-term benefits, paragraph 153
Accounts
521 · 459 · 323

On this page

This is an English translation of the Slovak guide Jubilejné odmeny. Quotations from Slovak sources are our translation; IAS 19 is quoted from its official English text.

Private sector: the Labour Code and the collective agreement

The Labour Code (Act No. 311/2001 Coll., version in force from 1 September 2026) contains no provision that would give an employee an entitlement to a bonus on a work or life jubilee. It mentions work and life anniversaries in two places:

  • Wages (§ 118(3)). “A payment made by the employer to the employee for work on the occasion of their work anniversary or life anniversary is also considered wages, unless it is paid from after-tax profit or from the social fund.”
  • Average earnings (§ 134(6)). “Wages paid to an employee on the occasion of their work anniversary or life anniversary under § 118(3) are considered wages paid for a period of four calendar quarters.” When average earnings are determined, the bonus is therefore spread over four quarters.

If the bonus is paid from the social fund or from after-tax profit, it is not wages (§ 118(2) and (3)). The rest of this guide deals with a bonus that is wages.

Where the entitlement arises

“The employer agrees wage conditions with the relevant trade union body in a collective agreement or with the employee in the employment contract” (§ 119(2)). They also cover “further components of payments provided for work and the conditions for providing them” (§ 119(3)).

  • Collective agreement. It sets working conditions, including wage conditions, more favourably than the Labour Code does (§ 231(1); § 2(1) of Act No. 2/1991 Coll. on Collective Bargaining). “Entitlements that have arisen to individual employees from a collective agreement are claimed and satisfied like other entitlements of employees from the employment relationship” (§ 231(2)).
  • Employment contract. “The employment contract may agree further conditions in which the employer and the employee have an interest, in particular further material benefits” (§ 44(1)).

What this means for the calculation of the provision

  • Which jubilees are rewarded, in what amount and on what conditions is set by the collective agreement or the employment contract. The provision is calculated accordingly.
  • If the bonus is set from the wage (for example as a multiple of it), the calculation needs an assumption about salary growth. For a fixed amount in euro, it does not.
  • If the agreement ties the bonus to the employment still existing on the day of the jubilee, it is paid only to employees who stay with the company until the jubilee. Turnover and mortality are therefore taken into account.
  • For a work jubilee, the time of payment depends on the period the agreement counts (for example from the date of joining); for a life jubilee, on the date of birth.

Public service and civil service

Status as of 19 October 2026

  • Act No. 553/2003 Coll. and Act No. 55/2017 Coll. are quoted in the version in force from 1 January 2026; Slov-Lex lists no future version of either.
  • No higher-level collective agreement for the public service or for the civil service for 2026 is in the list of the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic. The agreements for the period 1 July – 31 December 2025 are in its archive; they increased severance pay (odstupné) and odchodné by one functional salary and did not deal with jubilee bonuses.
WhoProvisionJubileeMaximum
employees performing work in the public interest§ 20(1)(c) of Act No. 553/2003 Coll.50 and 60 years of agefunctional salary
civil servants§ 142(1)(d) of Act No. 55/2017 Coll.50 and 60 years of agemost recently granted functional salary
members of the Police Force, the Slovak Information Service, the National Security Authority and the Prison and Court Guard Corps§ 102a(2)(a) of Act No. 73/1998 Coll.50 years of ageservice income under § 84(1)(a) to (m), for a member of the Police Force under § 84(2)(a) to (m)
professional soldiers§ 166(1)(d) of Act No. 281/2015 Coll.30 years of state servicesum of the rank salary, the increase in the functional tariff and the increase in the rank salary (§ 157(1) and (2), § 157a)

In all four cases the law does not impose the bonus but permits it: the employer “may provide” it (Act No. 553/2003 Coll.), it “is possible to provide” it to a civil servant (Act No. 55/2017 Coll.), and it “may be awarded” to a police officer and a professional soldier.

Act No. 553/2003 Coll. on the remuneration of certain employees performing work in the public interest

The Act applies mainly to budgetary organisations of the state, of municipalities and of higher territorial units, to municipalities and higher territorial units, state funds, public and state universities, the Slovak Academy of Sciences and public research institutions (§ 1(1)). It applies to contributory organisations of the state, of municipalities and of higher territorial units, except those whose expenditure on wages, salaries, service income and other personal compensation exceeds the contribution from the founder’s budget, and except the Slovak National Theatre, the Slovak Philharmonic and the State Forests of the Tatra National Park (§ 1(1)(c)).

“The employer may provide the employee with a bonus … (c) for work merit on reaching 50 years and 60 years of age of up to the amount of their functional salary” (§ 20(1)).

  • The Act does not regulate a bonus for years worked.
  • A proposal to pay the bonus, including its amount, is justified in writing by the relevant manager; a bonus agreed in a collective agreement is paid even without such a proposal (§ 20(3)).
  • A bonus under a higher-level collective agreement is permitted by § 20(1)(i), added with effect from 1 July 2025 by Act No. 154/2025 Coll. The conditions of the bonus under letter (c) have not changed since 1 January 2024.
  • Act No. 138/2019 Coll. on Teaching Staff and Professional Staff (version in force from 1 September 2026) contains no separate rules on a jubilee bonus.

Act No. 55/2017 Coll. on the Civil Service

“A civil servant may be provided with a bonus … (d) on reaching 50 years and 60 years of age, of no more than their most recently granted functional salary” (§ 142(1)). The proposal, including the amount, is justified in writing by the manager; a bonus agreed in a collective agreement may be provided even without such a proposal (§ 142(2)).

The provision in public administration

Budgetary and contributory organisations, municipalities, higher territorial units and state special-purpose funds follow their own accounting procedures. Both regulations list “employee benefits” among the provisions that are made (§ 14(9)(b)):

  • municipalities, higher territorial units and the budgetary and contributory organisations they have established: Measure of the Ministry of Finance No. MF/014454/2022-36,
  • state budgetary and contributory organisations and state special-purpose funds: Measure of the Ministry of Finance No. MF/14522/2022-36. Under its § 14(11): “The accounting entity that is the Ministry of Finance accounts for the provision for employee benefits, which are odchodné, jubilee and long-service pensions, for the employees of all state budgetary organisations and state contributory organisations.”

Why a provision is made

“Provisions are liabilities of uncertain timing or amount” (§ 26(5) of Act No. 431/2002 Coll. on Accounting). At the date as of which the financial statements are prepared, the accounting entity must make provisions in accordance with its accounting principles and accounting methods (§ 26(3)). With a jubilee bonus, it is uncertain whether the employee will still be employed at the time of the jubilee and, for a bonus set from the wage, also its amount.

The accounting procedures for entrepreneurs (Measure No. 23054/2002-92) list in § 19(7)(s) provisions for “the payment of odchodné, the payment of benefits to employees on life jubilees or work jubilees and other benefits to employees (employee benefits)”. The same subsection sets out the obligations to which provisions relate:

“Provisions relate to obligations arising from generally binding legislation, from concluded contracts, or from the voluntary decision of the accounting entity to fulfil an obligation towards third parties, for example if, on the basis of the entity’s past conduct, published policies or an announcement acknowledging the entity’s responsibility, a third party expects that such an obligation will be fulfilled.”

A bonus under a collective agreement or an employment contract is an obligation from a concluded contract. § 14(8) of the accounting procedures for public administration is worded almost identically.

An accounting entity keeping single-entry accounts does not have the obligation under § 26(3), “except for the depreciation of assets and the making of provisions that are tax-deductible expenses under a special regulation”, which is § 20(9) of Act No. 595/2003 Coll. on Income Tax (§ 26(7) of the Accounting Act). § 26 sets no exception for micro and small entities keeping double-entry accounts. The version of the Accounting Act in force from 1 January 2027 does not change § 26.

Calculation

Under § 19(2) of the accounting procedures: “When making provisions under subsection 7(s), actuarial methods may be used, and the value of these provisions is adjusted to their value at the time of accounting and reporting.” The method of making and using provisions is set out in the entity’s internal rules (§ 19(2)).

The calculation uses:

  • the jubilees, amounts and conditions under the collective agreement or employment contract,
  • employee data: date of birth and date of joining,
  • turnover and mortality,
  • salary growth, if the bonus is set from the wage,
  • the discount rate (yield curve) and the social security contribution rate.

Selected official data on the yield curve, wages and inflation are on the page Aktuárske predpoklady (in Slovak).

The procedure is the same as for the provision for odchodné, except that it is done for each future jubilee separately and the results are added up. Simplified formula for one employee:

Provision = Σj Oj × (1 + g)nj × pj × (1 + i)−nj × s/Sj

  • Oj: bonus for jubilee j at today’s amount; only jubilees the employee has not yet reached are added up
  • g: annual salary growth (0 for a fixed amount)
  • nj: number of years until jubilee j
  • pj: probability that the employee will be employed by the company at the time of jubilee j
  • i: discount rate
  • s: number of years worked with the company so far; Sj = s + nj: number of years with the company at the time of jubilee j

IAS 19: the period to which a jubilee bonus is attributed

IAS 19 attributes benefit to periods of service under the plan’s benefit formula (paragraph 70); for other long-term employee benefits this follows from paragraph 155. Under the example illustrating paragraph 73, a lump sum benefit that vests after a number of years of service is attributed in equal parts to each of those years; “No benefit is attributed to subsequent years.”

A bonus for years worked with the company is therefore attributed on a straight-line basis from joining to the date of the jubilee, each jubilee separately, which matches the simplified attribution s/Sj.

For a bonus on reaching an age whose amount does not depend on years worked (for example 50 and 60 years under Act No. 553/2003 Coll.), the same question of the attribution period arises as for statutory odchodné. It is discussed in the guide to odchodné.

Accounting

The accounting procedures set these rules for provisions (§ 19(8) of Measure No. 23054/2002-92):

  • Making a provision for expenses is recorded “in the relevant expense account to which the liability relates”. If the provision relates to several kinds of expense, or no expense account is set for that kind of expense, it is recorded in account 548 – Other operating expenses (or 568 – Other financial expenses).
  • Using a provision is recorded as a debit to the relevant provisions account with a corresponding credit to the relevant liabilities account.
  • Releasing a provision, or part of it, that is no longer needed is recorded by the reverse of the entry used to make it.

For a jubilee bonus that is wages, this means:

  • The expense account to which the liability relates is 521 – Wage expenses: “Accounts 521 – Wage expenses, 522 – Income of partners and members from dependent activity, and 523 – Remuneration of members of company and cooperative bodies record all employee benefits, including the income of partners and cooperative members from dependent activity” (§ 66). Unlike odchodné, this is not account 527 – Statutory social expenses, which under § 66 is debited “also with severance pay (odstupné) and odchodné”.
  • The provisions account is 459 – Other provisions (account group 45 – Provisions, § 60), or 323 – Short-term provisions, which records provisions “with an expected settlement period of no more than one year when they arise” (§ 50(3)). Account 451 – Statutory provisions is intended for long-term provisions that are made under a special regulation (§ 60(2)).
TransactionDebitCredit
Making the provision521459 (if settled within one year, 323)
Using the provision when the bonus is paid459 (323)the relevant account of liabilities to the employee
Releasing a provision no longer needed459 (323)521

IAS 19: other long-term employee benefits

Companies that prepare their financial statements under IFRS measure jubilee bonuses under IAS 19. Who they are is explained in the guide IAS 19 in Slovakia.

  • Category. IAS 19 lists “jubilee or other long-service benefits” among other long-term employee benefits (paragraph 153(b), also paragraph 5(c)), “if not expected to be settled wholly before twelve months after the end of the annual reporting period in which the employees render the related service” (paragraph 153). The category is defined in paragraph 8.
  • Measurement. In recognising and measuring other long-term employee benefits, paragraphs 56–98 and 113–115 apply (paragraph 155). They include the projected unit credit method (paragraph 67) and the attribution of benefit to periods of service (paragraphs 70 to 73).
  • Constructive obligation. “An entity shall account not only for its legal obligation under the formal terms of a defined benefit plan, but also for any constructive obligation that arises from the entity’s informal practices. Informal practices give rise to a constructive obligation where the entity has no realistic alternative but to pay employee benefits” (paragraph 61, applied through paragraph 155).
  • Profit or loss. Service cost, net interest and remeasurements are recognised in profit or loss, except to the extent that another IFRS requires or permits their inclusion in the cost of an asset (paragraph 156); unlike the accounting required for post-employment benefits, this method “does not recognise remeasurements in other comprehensive income” (paragraph 154). The comparison with odchodné is in the guide IAS 19 in Slovakia.

Sources

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