UK holiday entitlement calculator

Where 5.6 weeks and the 28 day cap come from

The right sits in the Working Time Regulations 1998. Regulation 13(1) gives a worker four weeks' annual leave in each leave year. Regulation 13A adds 1.6 weeks for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2009, and 4 plus 1.6 is the 5.6 weeks that GOV.UK describes. The same regulation sets a maximum of 28 days on the combined entitlement.

That cap is the reason the sums stop being linear. Someone on a five day week reaches it exactly: 5 × 5.6 = 28. A six day week would come to 33.6, but GOV.UK's own example says staff working six days a week are only entitled to 28 days' paid holiday. Seven days a week gets the same 28.

Note the word "paid" and the word "workers". The right covers almost all people classed as workers, not only employees on permanent contracts. If you take on a casual or an agency worker, the question is not whether they are on your payroll but whether they count as a worker.

Full-time and part-time: days per week × 5.6

For someone who works the same pattern all year, the rule is the one on GOV.UK: multiply the days worked per week by 5.6. A part-timer gets at least 5.6 weeks, which for them is fewer than 28 days. The examples below use the same formula the calculator runs.

The calculator shows decimals rather than rounding for you, so 16.8 stays 16.8. In practice you then decide how to book it. Some teams convert to hours (5.6 × the weekly hours) so that a part-timer on short days is not given a full day for a short day. Do that only if the result is never lower than the day based figure, because the statute is the floor.

Do bank holidays count towards the 5.6 weeks?

Only if you say so. GOV.UK states that bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave, and that an employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker's statutory annual leave. So there are two honest set-ups.

• Included: the bank holidays are taken out of the same entitlement. A five day worker with 8 bank holidays on working days has 28 in total and 20 left to book. Tick the box in the calculator to see this.
• Additional: the contract adds bank holidays on top, so the worker books the full statutory amount and gets the bank holidays as well.

Be careful with wording in offer letters. "28 days including bank holidays" and "28 days plus bank holidays" are very different promises and the second costs you extra paid days for every person. The calculator treats this as information only, because whether bank holidays are an extra is your contract, not a statutory right.

Starting or leaving part way through the leave year

GOV.UK says a worker who starts part way through a leave year is only entitled to part of the leave for that year. Under the monthly system, a worker gets one twelfth of their leave in each month, and if they start part way through a month they can accrue one twelfth from their first day. The calculator counts the start month in full for that reason.

Regulation 15A deals with the rounding. A fraction of a day is treated as a half day if it is less than a half day, and as a whole day if it is more than a half day. A fraction of exactly half stays at half.

What happens when someone leaves

Regulation 14 covers payment in lieu. Where the proportion of leave taken is less than the proportion of the leave year that has expired, the employer makes a payment in lieu. The formula is (A × B) − C: A is the entitlement, B the share of the leave year gone, C the leave already taken. If the answer is positive, that many days are owed as pay.

Take a five day worker with 28 days who leaves on 31 March in a calendar year leave year. Ninety of 365 days have passed, so B is 0.2466, A × B is 6.9 days, and if they have taken 4 days the employer owes 2.9 days. If they have taken 9, they are ahead of their accrual, and whether you may recover that from final pay depends on the contract and the rules on deductions, so look before you deduct anything.

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

Here fixed weekly days do not work, because there is no fixed week. GOV.UK says people working irregular hours or part of the year are entitled to up to 5.6 weeks of statutory leave, and that they build it up depending on the hours they have already worked. The measure is 12.07% of the hours worked in a pay period. Regulation 15B says the same thing and adds that a worker cannot accrue more than 28 days of leave in a leave year under it.

The number is not arbitrary. GOV.UK's reform guidance explains that a worker's working weeks in a year are 46.4, which is 52 weeks minus 5.6 weeks of leave. Divide 5.6 by 46.4 and you get 12.07%. Put differently, for every 46.4 weeks worked, 5.6 weeks of holiday build up.

GOV.UK says the result must be rounded up to the nearest hour if the entitlement is 0.5 of an hour or more. Four examples, all computed by the calculator:

Look at the last two rows. Rounding each pay period on its own means a very short period can lose its fraction entirely, which is why the calculator lets you enter hours already accrued: the 28 day ceiling is applied to the running total, and it needs the length of a typical working day to turn days into hours.

The amending regulations came into force on 1 January 2024. The 12.07% accrual method and rolled-up holiday pay apply to leave years that begin on or after 1 April 2024. If your leave year began earlier, the older accrual rules still apply until it ends.

What counts as irregular hours or part-year

The same guidance defines an irregular hours worker as one whose hours are wholly or mostly variable. A part-year worker has periods within the year, during the term of the contract, of at least a week that they are not required to work and for which they are not paid. A term time teaching assistant and a seasonal garden centre worker are the classic examples.

Zero-hours workers

GOV.UK does not use the term zero hours. A zero-hours worker whose hours are wholly or mostly variable fits the irregular hours definition, so the 12.07% method applies. Which method fits depends on whether the hours are wholly or mostly variable; if unsure, ask ACAS. The calculator offers both so you can compare.

Whichever applies, two administrative choices follow.

• Leave booked as it accrues. You track hours accrued per pay period and let the worker take it when they ask, within your normal notice rules.
• Rolled-up holiday pay. The GOV.UK reform guidance allows rolled-up pay for irregular hours and part-year workers, calculated as 12.07% of the worker's total pay. Put in the pay for the period and the calculator shows that uplift. Do not use it for people on regular hours.

One rule to remember from regulation 15B: this accrued leave may not be replaced by a payment in lieu except where employment is terminated. Rolled-up pay is a different mechanism, and it needs to be shown clearly on payslips. If you are unsure whether it suits your set-up, get advice before you adopt it.

Carry-over, sickness and untaken leave

• Carry-over. If the employer agrees, a worker on 28 days can carry over up to 8 days. A worker who could not take leave because of sickness can carry over up to 20 days (28 days for irregular hours and part-year workers) and must use it within 18 months. Leave missed because of family leave can be carried over up to the full 28 days.
• Sickness. GOV.UK says workers continue to build up holiday entitlement while off work sick.
• Leave year dates. GOV.UK says an employer should tell staff the dates of their statutory leave year as soon as they start, for example 1 January to 31 December. Put it in the contract and in the handbook.
• Pay in lieu. Outside termination, the 12.07% accrual cannot be swapped for money, as regulation 15B says.

Holiday pay: what to keep records of

Entitlement is the number of days. Holiday pay is a separate question. Regulation 16 calculates it from a week's pay for each week of leave, using a 52 week reference period in which weeks of sick leave are left out. This page does not calculate holiday pay.

What you can do cheaply is keep clean inputs: hours worked per pay period, leave taken with dates, and any agreed change of pattern. Whichever method you use, those three records answer most disputes.

When your result will differ from the calculator

• Contract. Some contracts give more than 28 days. The calculator shows the legal floor, not your promise.
• Collective agreement or policy. Sector agreements and staff handbooks can improve entitlement or set carry-over and booking rules.
• Pattern changes. Someone who moves from five days to three mid-year needs the year split in two. Run each part separately and add them.
• Region and year. The number of bank holidays depends on where in the UK the person works and which year it is. We do not list them.

Tracking UK leave in HR FLARE

The calculator gives you the number. Keeping it right through the year is the dull part, and a spreadsheet tends to drift. HR FLARE is free to get started for up to 5 employees, and paid plans are flat, listed on the pricing page.

• Balances: grant the allowance for the year in one go, or let it accrue monthly. Unused days can carry over.
• Requests: employees request leave in the app and the manager approves. A request needs a free-text reason.
• Public holidays are counted in the calendar, so you can see which days a request really uses.
• Self-planned schedule: each person plans their own week, and approved leave shows on the team view. There is no manager rota.

What it does not do: it is not legal advice, it does not calculate holiday pay or tax, and payroll in HR FLARE is records and payslips only. We do not claim a built-in 12.07% accrual for irregular hours, so for that group work out the hours here and enter or adjust the balance yourself. Hosted in Europe, DSGVO-ready, in English and German.

• Regular hours, full year: days = min(5.6 × days per week, 28). Hours = 5.6 × hours per week, and the 28 day ceiling is applied at hours per day (hours per week ÷ days per week).
• Starter: months = the number of calendar months from the start month to the end of the leave year, counting the start month in full. Accrued days = full year days × months ÷ 12, then rounded under regulation 15A: a fraction under 0.5 becomes 0.5, exactly 0.5 stays, over 0.5 becomes 1.
• Leaver: earned = full year days × B, where B = days from the later of start date and leave year start up to the leaving date ÷ days in the leave year. Pay in lieu days = earned − days taken, shown only when positive. For someone who joined part way through the year, B counts from their start date. Regulation 14 does not spell out that case, so check the figure with ACAS or an adviser before paying.
• Irregular hours: accrued hours = hours worked × 12.07 ÷ 100, rounded to the nearest hour with 0.5 rounding up. Ceiling: 28 × typical hours per day, applied to hours accrued earlier plus this period.
• Rolled-up pay: uplift = pay × 12.07 ÷ 100.
• Zero days: a worker on 0 days a week returns 0.

Sources

All figures above come from these pages, last checked on 5 October 2026. Check them for changes before you act.

• GOV.UK: holiday entitlement (5.6 weeks, 28 days, irregular hours, sickness)
• GOV.UK: entitlement (3 day and 6 day examples)
• GOV.UK: holiday pay, the basics (5 day week, bank holidays)
• GOV.UK: calculate leave entitlement (one twelfth, 12.07%, rounding, 8 day carry-over, leave year dates)
• GOV.UK: holiday pay and entitlement reforms (46.4 weeks, definitions, rolled-up pay, 1 April 2024)
• Working Time Regulations 1998, regulation 13
• Regulation 13A
• Regulation 14
• Regulation 15A
• Regulation 15B
• Regulation 16