> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.samesystem.dev/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.samesystem.dev/business-guides/employee-lifecycle-management/terminate-employees/terminate-employee-known-end-date.md).
# Terminate employee (known end date)
{% hint style="info" %}
Only available in API v2.
{% endhint %}
In this scenario, the user and a contract have been created in the system.
The employee has either been dismissed or has resigned from his/her position. The user must be able to use the system until the contract ends.
To end the employment, an end date must be updated on the contract.
You will have these options to terminate the employment:
Terminate the user
To terminate the current active contract and the user in a single call, the following endpoint can be used:
POST /{clientToken}/users/{id}/terminate
The parameter `{id}` is the unique id number of the user in SameSystem. The value is present in the user object: `user.id`.\
It can also be a custom Id, like an employee id or payroll number from an external system. If a custom id is used, you must include the parameter `useCustomId=true` in the call.
Request body is an object conforming to the `ChangeTerminationDateInput` schema.
{% hint style="info" %}
**Notice:**
Terminating a contract triggers background jobs that synchronize/clean-up the user’s calendar lines in the system. While these jobs are running, the user is temporarily marked as updating and contract creation/updating are blocked during the update process.
To make the integration resilient to this, we recommend a retry with backoff if you need to terminate the user and immediately rehire it again.
Example: Add a retry once after 5 seconds, then 30 seconds, and then one minute rather than assuming the endpoint will always be immediately available.
{% endhint %}
Create new contract with "last" attribute to terminate the user
For employees with a known employment end date, you can create a new contract using the `last` attribute to define the termination as part of the contract creation.
This allows the employment period and its termination to be created in a single step, without subsequently calling the Terminate User endpoint.
This is particularly useful for temporary or fixed-term employees, where both the start and end date of the employment are already known when the contract is created.
Once the end date is reached, the employee will be considered terminated according to the contract.
Use this endpoint to insert a contract:
POST /{clientToken}/users/{userId}/contracts/insert
The parameter `{userId}` is the unique id number of the user in SameSystem. The value is present in the user object: `user.id`.
It can also be a custom Id, like an employee id or payroll number from an external system. If a custom id is used, you must include the parameter `useCustomId=true` in the call.
Request body is an object conforming to the ContractCreateReplacingInput schema.
You will need to set these:
last:true
A Boolean. Set to true to terminate user when end date is reached.
enddate
Set end date. If you omit the enddate the end date will be the date, you call the endpoint.
After termination, you can see under Contracts that the employment will be ended after the termination date.
{% hint style="danger" %}
**Notice:**
There is an API endpoint for deleting a user. Using this endpoint will permanently remove the user and all associated data, including schedules, logs, files, and historical records.
When the delete endpoint is called, the user is immediately disabled, and the system schedules a background job to permanently destroy the user after 24 hours. During this 24-hour window, the user can still be restored by our support.
The recommended method is to terminate a user. Termination preserves all user data in the system and allows you to rehire the user later or review their historical information.
A terminated user will not have access to the system from the termination date onward, but their data remains available for reporting and audit purposes.
{% endhint %}
---
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