Holiday Entitlement Calculator UK

How statutory holiday entitlement is calculated

The legal minimum is 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, made up of 4 weeks from EU law and 1.6 weeks added by UK law. A week of holiday is the time you normally work in a week, so your entitlement in days is the number of days you work each week multiplied by 5.6. Statutory leave is capped at 28 days, so someone working 6 days a week still gets 28 days, not 33.6.

If you book leave in hours, multiply your weekly hours by 5.6. A full-time worker on 37.5 hours a week has 210 hours of statutory holiday. Your contract can give you more than this, but never less. The table assumes 7.5-hour days.

Bank holidays for part-time workers

Bank holidays are not an extra legal entitlement. An employer can count them as part of your 5.6 weeks or give them on top, and your contract says which. England and Wales have 8 bank holidays a year, Northern Ireland 10, and Scotland usually 9; in 2026 Scotland has 10 because of the World Cup bank holiday on 15 June.

Part-time workers must not be treated less favourably than full-timers, so the fair method is to pro-rate bank holidays rather than give them only when they land on your days. Most bank holidays fall on a Monday, so Monday workers get more of them than people who work Wednesdays. A leave year running from April 2026 to March 2027 in England and Wales contains 10 bank holidays, not 8, because both Easter 2026 (3 and 6 April) and Easter 2027 (26 and 29 March) fall inside it. The table shows how that plays out for different working patterns.

Irregular hours and part-year workers: the 12.07% rule

For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours workers (whose paid hours are wholly or mostly variable) and part-year workers (who have unpaid weeks off, such as term-time staff) build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours they actually work, on the last day of each pay period. The figure comes from 5.6 weeks of holiday divided by the 46.4 weeks left to work in a year.

The regulations round the result: under 30 minutes of a part hour is ignored, 30 minutes or more counts as a full hour. GOV.UK’s example is 30 hours worked in a week, which earns 3.621 hours and is rounded to 4. Accrual stops at 28 days in a leave year.

Instead of giving paid time off later, an employer can pay rolled-up holiday pay: an extra 12.07% of pay for the hours worked, paid with each wage and shown as a separate line on the payslip. That is only allowed for irregular-hours and part-year workers whose leave year began on or after 1 April 2024.

Starting or leaving part way through the leave year

In your first year, holiday builds up at one-twelfth of your annual entitlement for each month worked, rounded up to the nearest half day. Someone entitled to 28 days who starts on 1 January has 7 days by the end of March.

When you leave, the Working Time Regulations use (A × B) − C: your annual entitlement, times the share of the leave year that has passed, minus the leave you have taken. On a 28-day entitlement with a January leave year, leaving on 31 July means 58% of the year has passed, so you have accrued 16.3 days. If you have taken 10, you are owed 6.3 days, worth £723 on a £30,000 salary at £115.38 a day.

Leaving is the only time statutory holiday can be paid instead of taken, and it must be paid even if you are dismissed for gross misconduct. If you have taken more holiday than you have built up, your employer can only take the overpayment back from your final pay if that was agreed in writing beforehand. Holiday pay owed on leaving is taxed and has National Insurance deducted like any other pay.

How much holiday pay you should get

For regular-hours workers, the first 4 weeks of leave must be paid at your normal rate of pay, which includes regular overtime, commission and payments linked to seniority or qualifications. The remaining 1.6 weeks can be paid at basic pay. Irregular-hours and part-year workers must get normal pay for all of their leave.

When pay varies, a week’s holiday pay is the average over the last 52 weeks in which you were paid, looking back up to 104 weeks to find them. If you have worked for less than 52 weeks, the average of the full weeks you have worked is used. Bonuses are not usually included.

Carrying holiday over and keeping records

• You must normally take the 4 weeks of EU-derived leave in the leave year. If your contract allows, up to 8 of 28 days (the 1.6 weeks) can be carried over.
• If you could not take holiday because of sickness, regular-hours workers can carry over up to 20 days, and irregular-hours or part-year workers up to 28 days. That leave must be used within 18 months of the end of the leave year.
• Leave you could not take because of maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave can be carried into the next leave year.
• All of your leave can carry over if your employer did not give you a reasonable chance to take it or did not warn you it would be lost.
• From 6 April 2026, employers must keep records of annual leave and holiday pay for at least 6 years and can be fined if they cannot show them.