10 Vacation Request Forms You Can Copy and Use in 2026

1. Jotform: the quick branded form

Jotform's vacation request template is the fastest option when you need a branded form today rather than a leave-management project. Start with the template, remove fields you don't need, then publish it as a link, embed it on an internal page, or send it by email.

The field set is flexible enough for ordinary holiday requests:

• Employee details: Name, email, department and manager.
• Leave details: Leave type, start date, end date, partial-day hours and return date.
• Coverage: Handoff owner, urgent contact and work notes.
• Approval: Manager decision, comments and timestamp.
• Attachments: Supporting files where your policy requires them.

Jotform supports notifications, multi-step approvals, file uploads, native signatures through Jotform Sign, exports and integrations with tools such as Sheets, Slack and Airtable. For a small team replacing email requests, that's plenty. You can also use a fillable Word document when a signed offline record matters, then keep the web form as the main intake route.

Where it breaks is scale. Submission and storage limits can push you towards a higher plan, and complex approval rules may need add-ons or careful configuration. It's a form builder first, not an HRIS. If you need accrual calculations, carry-over rules and payroll-grade balances, you'll outgrow it.

Practical rule: Use Jotform when the problem is messy intake. Don't use it as the source of truth for leave balances unless you've built a reliable integration.

2. Typeform: one question at a time

Typeform's absence request templates suit teams that lose employees halfway through long internal forms. The interface presents one question at a time, which feels lighter on a phone and makes the request easier to complete without a separate instruction sheet.

Use the early questions to establish the routing logic. Ask for department and leave type first, then show the relevant dates and handover questions. A sick-leave path shouldn't ask for the same information as a planned holiday path. Logic jumps and required fields help prevent incomplete submissions, while custom branding keeps the form from looking like an anonymous survey.

Typeform is strongest when employee experience matters more than back-office complexity. It connects with tools including Slack, Google Sheets and Zapier, so a completed request can notify the right manager and create a record. It's also a good fit for distributed teams that want one standard intake experience without asking everyone to learn a new HR platform.

The trade-off is approval depth. Typeform can collect and route information, but multi-stage approvals usually need connected tools or additional configuration. Response caps can also affect cost as usage grows.

A polished first step won't fix a broken approval trail. Give every submission a visible status, named approver and expected response point.

3. Formstack: when you need the audit trail

Formstack's PTO request form suits teams that need a controlled approval record, not just a completed submission. Its builder supports conditional fields, approval routing, document generation and electronic signatures. That combination helps HR keep the request, decision and signed record together.

Build the form around the information approvers need: employee identity, jurisdiction, leave category, requested dates, hours, return date and handoff owner. Route the submission first to the manager, then to HR for a policy check. After approval, generate a document for storage. Set role-based access so managers see dates and coverage details, while HR can review the full record.

The audit trail is Formstack's strongest reason to consider. It records submission time, approver actions, changes and added signatures. That gives HR a clearer record than an email thread with “approved” buried in several replies.

Setup takes work, and the platform can cost more than a small team needs. Formstack makes better sense when you will also use its forms, documents and e-signature tools. A team with one manager and straightforward holidays may find the workflow heavier than its approval process requires.

The Formstack template linked above is a useful starting point, but rewrite the approval language before publishing. State whether the manager confirms staffing, approves the employee's entitlement, or performs both checks. That distinction prevents a completed form from hiding an unresolved policy decision.

4. monday.com: requests that stay visible

monday.com's time-off request template works when the team already manages work on boards and wants absence requests to land in the same operating view. Employees submit a WorkForm. The response creates an item. Managers update the approval status, and the team can view approved leave against shared plans.

This setup handles the handoff better than a standalone form because the request stays visible after submission. Add columns for leave type, start date, end date, working days, coverage owner, approver, approval date and policy notes. Automations can alert the manager, notify the employee after a decision, and move approved requests into a calendar or planning board.

The useful feature isn't the form itself. It's the shared status. A requester can see whether the item is waiting for a manager, with HR, approved, declined or returned for changes. That reduces the “did anyone see my email?” messages that make basic forms feel unreliable.

monday.com can also support capacity planning through dashboards, but you'll need to configure the rules. It doesn't automatically become an HR system because a board contains a date column. Per-seat pricing can become awkward when many managers need access, and HR-specific requirements need deliberate design.

Pick this option when visibility across work matters as much as the approval itself. Avoid it if you only need a private leave ledger.

5. Smartsheet: leave as part of the plan

Smartsheet's team vacation planner is built for operations teams that already use grids, reports and shared timelines. A request form feeds a central sheet, where managers can review dates, trigger alerts and display approved absences on a calendar.

The useful structure is a single record for each request. Keep the employee's identity, team, leave type, requested dates, approved dates, coverage owner, status and decision notes together. Don't let the calendar become the only record. A calendar shows who is away, but it won't explain why a request was declined or whether the dates later changed.

Smartsheet is particularly useful when leave affects project delivery. A team lead can compare planned absences with project timelines and report on coverage across departments. The same setup can support other internal requests, such as equipment, access or recruitment approvals, without moving to another tool.

The limitation is administration. Someone must define the columns, alerts, permissions and approval paths. Small teams may spend more time maintaining the sheet than approving leave. Licensing can also be excessive if all you need is a basic request and one shared calendar.

Smartsheet is the better pick for an operations-led organisation. It's less attractive when HR needs automatic accruals or statutory leave logic.

6. ClickUp: if the team already lives there

ClickUp's time-off request template suits teams that already run projects in ClickUp and don't want another place for internal requests. The public form creates a task in a chosen List, where custom statuses and assignees control the approval process.

A useful status path is “Submitted”, “Manager review”, “HR review”, “Approved”, “Declined” and “Cancelled”. Add custom fields for leave category, start date, end date, return date, partial-day hours, handoff owner and coverage notes. The task comments then hold the decision history without scattering it across chat and email.

ClickUp works well when managers already live in the workspace. Notifications and simple automations can assign the request, remind an approver, and tell the employee when the status changes. Calendar and dashboard views give the wider team a view of approved absences, provided permissions are configured correctly.

It's less convincing as a standalone HR tool. Accrual calculations, jurisdiction-specific policies and payroll exports require more design than the template suggests. Plan limits and pricing also need checking before you make the form part of a company-wide process.

Keep the workflow boring: one request, one owner, one visible status. Extra task fields don't compensate for unclear responsibility.

Choose ClickUp when the team's existing workspace is the advantage. Choose a dedicated HR platform when balances and policy rules are the main problem.

7. Airtable: the customisable option

Airtable's PTO and absence approval setup is the most customisable option in this list. It gives you a form for intake and a database-like base for approvals, conflicts, calendars and reporting. That makes it useful for a team with policies that don't fit neatly into a fixed template.

Build separate views for employees, managers and HR. Employees need the submitted dates and status. Managers need team coverage and overlapping requests. HR needs the full audit record, including jurisdiction, leave category, balance check and any adjustment after approval.

Automations can notify the approver, flag overlapping dates and update the employee when a decision is made. You can also add a table for employees, a table for policies and a linked record for each request. That structure is powerful, but it creates responsibility. Someone has to decide how the base handles carry-over, part days, public holidays, cancelled leave and changes after payroll.

The risk is treating a flexible schema as a ready-made policy engine. Airtable won't know whether a request is valid unless you define the rules and test edge cases. Automation and API limits also depend on the plan.

Airtable is my pick for an operations or HR team that wants control and has someone who can own the base. It's a poor fit for a team that wants to install a template and forget about governance.

8. Zoho People: leave as an HR process

Zoho People's leave management marks the point where a vacation request form becomes part of an HR system. Employees can apply for leave through web or mobile workflows, while administrators configure policies, grants, accruals, approvals and reports.

That distinction matters when the request depends on a balance. A form can ask how many days someone wants. Zoho People can connect that request to the employee's configured leave policy and show the result in the wider record. It also supports multi-level approvals and partial cancellations, which are awkward to reproduce in a spreadsheet.

A good setup still starts with careful field and policy design. Separate ordinary holiday from sick, parental, statutory and other protected categories. Set rules for carry-over, expiry, partial days, notice and manager delegation. For distributed teams, include the employee's jurisdiction so the system doesn't apply one office's assumptions to everyone.

The downside is implementation. You'll spend more time configuring the system than you would with Jotform or Typeform. That's worthwhile if you need broader HR modules, but not if the only problem is an inbox full of date requests.

Zoho People is best for organisations ready to manage leave as a policy-controlled HR process. It's too much for a small group with informal approval and no balance calculations.

9. BambooHR: leave beside the employee record

BambooHR's time-off management combines employee self-service requests, balances, accrual policies, approvals and shared calendar views inside a broader HR platform. It's a strong option when the leave record needs to sit beside employee data rather than in a separate form database.

The employee experience is straightforward. Someone submits a request, checks the available balance, and waits for the manager's decision. Managers can review requests against team availability, while HR can report on leave and connect the record with other HR workflows. API access also helps when approved time needs to reach payroll or another internal system.

That broader context is the benefit. A standalone vacation request form can collect the right dates, but it won't necessarily know whether the employee has enough entitlement or whether the request should be treated as protected leave. BambooHR reduces that gap when its configuration matches your policies.

You'll still need to test the setup. Check how it handles carry-over, partial days, cancellations, changes after approval and employees working across jurisdictions. Leave records are personal data, and medical notes are worse. Tell employees what you keep, keep access narrow, document who can view each record, and don't hold records longer than your policy and local law require. The same care applies to document storage security when supporting files enter the process.

BambooHR requires an HRIS subscription, so it may exceed the needs of a very small team. For a growing organisation that wants one employee record and fewer disconnected workflows, that cost can be easier to justify.

10. Vacation Tracker: requests inside Teams

Vacation Tracker on Microsoft AppSource is the practical choice for a Microsoft 365-centric organisation that wants employees to request leave inside Teams. Employees and managers stay in a familiar environment, while approved absence appears in an organisation-wide calendar and can be exported for payroll.

The form should still ask for the basics: leave category, dates, partial-day hours, return date, coverage owner and handoff notes. Add a rule that distinguishes an ordinary holiday request from sickness, FMLA or another protected category. Familiar software doesn't remove the need for correct classification.

The strongest argument for Vacation Tracker is adoption. People don't have to remember a separate portal or search through an HR site. Managers can approve in the same environment where they already handle daily work, and the shared calendar gives teams a common view of availability.

The boundary is HR depth. Complex accruals, cross-border policies, statutory workflows and detailed payroll controls may be better handled by a full HRIS. Exports to Excel or CSV are useful, but an export still creates a handoff that someone must check.

Pick Vacation Tracker when Microsoft Teams is already the company's operating layer. Don't pick it because the request form looks familiar. Confirm that its leave rules match your policy before replacing the current process.

The ten forms side by side

Match the tool to the approval, not the other way round

The right vacation request form depends on where the approval record needs to live. If one manager approves ordinary holiday and the team only needs a shared calendar, start with Jotform, Typeform or a tool your team already uses, such as monday.com, Smartsheet or ClickUp. The best choice is usually the one employees can find and managers will update.

Airtable sits in the middle. It can become a useful leave hub, but only if someone owns the schema and tests the rules. Formstack is stronger when signatures, document generation, permissions and audit history matter. Vacation Tracker makes sense for Microsoft 365 teams that want low context switching, while Zoho People and BambooHR are better when balances, accruals and employee records belong in the same HR system.

Don't judge a form by the first screen. Judge it by what happens after someone clicks submit. I've seen plenty of lovely forms that fall apart at that point.