No, there are no laws or regulations that require bank employees to take two consecutive weeks of vacation time. However, the FDIC (your primary regulator) does expect each bank to require its officers and employees “to be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of not less than two consecutive weeks . . . in the form of vacation, rotation of duties, or a combination of both activities.” 

While the FDIC's Risk Management Examination Manual states that your bank should have a policy to this effect, the agency also has recognized that, in practice, many banks cannot follow this policy — due to the small number of staff in a small bank, for example. In such case: “When the vacation policy does not conform to the recommended two-week absence, the institution's board of directors should review and approve the policy actually followed and the exceptions allowed.”

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

• FDIC Risk Management Manual of Examination Policies, Internal Routine and Controls Section, page 4 of the PDF file (“Banks should have a policy that requires all officers and employees to be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of not less than two consecutive weeks . . . Absence can be in the form of vacation, rotation of duties, or a combination of both activities. Such policies are highly effective in preventing embezzlements, which usually require a perpetrator’s ongoing presence to manipulate records, respond to inquiries, and otherwise prevent detection. The benefits of such policies are substantially, if not totally, eroded if the duties normally performed by an individual are not assumed by someone else.”)

• FDIC FIL-52-1995, FDIC’s Position on the Role of Vacation Policy as an Important Internal Safeguard (August 3, 1995) (“The FDIC endorses the concept of a vacation policy that allows active officers and employees to be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of no less than two weeks . . . When the vacation policy does not conform to the recommended two-week absence, the institution's board of directors should review and approve the policy actually followed and the exceptions allowed.”)