Company holidays are extra days that the company is closed that do not need to be deducted from an employee's allowance. If an employee has booked a holiday over a company holiday, this will not come off their holiday allowance. 

Please note: company holidays are different to statutory holidays.

To set the company holidays, go to Configure > Settings > Absence Settings > Company Holidays

These company holidays will not automatically be deducted from the employees' allowances. If you wish for these to be taken from the leave allowance, it will need to be made as a manual adjustment on each employee's profile. e.g., booking the days off between Christmas and the New Year.

To add a new company holiday, click the + icon

You have the option to set a half-day by ticking the half-day box.

Enter the details and click 'add company holiday'

Please note: You can now book a half-day for company holidays and choose AM or PM.

This update to Breathe was released on 15th April 2026.

Any company holidays or booked before this date would not have had the option of AM or PM; therefore will need to be cancelled and rebooked for the AM or PM option to appear.

The company holidays will appear on the company calendar in light blue. 

Please note: The company holiday will only appear if an employee has holiday booked in that month. 

A company Blackout is a period where employees cannot book a holiday. It is ideal if you need all your staff in the office over the holiday period.

To set company blackouts go to Configure > Settings > Absence Settings > Company Blackouts

To add a company black out click the + icon

Enter a name, start date & end date, select all or choose a particular department then create company blackout. 

If an employee already has holiday already booked during this period of time, breathe will let you know. 

Once you have created your company blackout, it will appear on the calendar in a light grey/blue colour for everyone to see. 

Please note: The company blackout will only appear in an employee has holiday booked in that month. 

If an employee tries to make a holiday request over an existing company blackout, they will receive an error message. 

Yes. However, only Line managers and HR users can override a company blackout.

You can do this by going to the employee's profile >  leave > add leave

From here you can add leave on behalf of the employee. Be sure to tick the "Ignore blackout clashes" box before you add the leave to the employee's profile...