Holiday Entitlement Calculator
Work out your statutory paid holiday entitlement — whether you work regular fixed days or irregular/zero-hours shifts — using gov.uk’s own formulas.
Start here
How to use this calculator
Choose whether you work regular fixed days, or irregular/zero-hours shifts — the statutory method is different for each.
Pick your worker type
Regular workers get a fixed weeks-based entitlement. Irregular-hours and part-year workers (zero-hours, casual) accrue leave per pay period instead.
Enter your days or hours
Regular: how many days a week you work. Irregular: how many hours you worked in the pay period you’re checking.
Check your first year
New in the job? Holiday builds up at one-twelfth of your full entitlement for each complete month you’ve worked.
The rules
How statutory holiday works
Almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year. For someone working a standard 5-day week that’s 28 days — and 28 days is also the overall legal cap, however many days a week you work. Part-time workers on regular days get the same 5.6 weeks pro rata: days worked per week × 5.6 (gov.uk’s own example: 3 days a week = 16.8 days a year).
Bank and public holidays aren’t automatically extra — your employer can choose to include them within your statutory 5.6 weeks, or give them on top. There’s no legal requirement either way, so check your contract.
If you’re in your first (partial) leave year, entitlement builds up gradually: one-twelfth of your full annual entitlement for each complete month worked, not all at once.
Zero-hours and casual work
Irregular-hours and part-year workers
If your hours genuinely vary from period to period, or you only work part of the year with unpaid gaps of a week or more, you’re an “irregular-hours” or “part-year” worker under the 2024 reforms. Instead of a weeks-based entitlement, your holiday accrues as 12.07% of the hours you actually work in each pay period — this figure comes directly from the 5.6-week statutory minimum (5.6 ÷ 46.4 remaining working weeks = 12.07%), so it’s mathematically the same entitlement, just spread across the hours you actually work.
Some employers pay this as rolled-up holiday pay instead — an extra 12.07% added to each payslip rather than paid when you take leave. This must be shown as a clearly separate item on your payslip if your employer uses it.
Holiday pay
What you actually get paid while on leave
If your pay is fixed, holiday pay is simply your normal pay. If your pay varies (overtime, commission, shift premiums), your employer calculates a week’s holiday pay by averaging your pay over the 52 weeks before you take leave, skipping any unpaid weeks and looking back no more than 104 weeks in total. If you haven’t worked 52 weeks yet, they use however many weeks of pay data are available.
Carrying leave over
Can I carry holiday into next year?
Normally you can carry over up to 8 days of your leave into the next year, but only if your employer agrees. If you couldn’t take your leave because of sick leave, you can carry over up to 20 days (regular workers) or 28 days (irregular-hours/part-year workers), to be used within 18 months. If you missed leave due to maternity or other family-related leave, you can carry over up to 28 days with no employer agreement needed. If your employer didn’t give you a reasonable chance to take your leave, or didn’t tell you that unused leave would be lost, you may be entitled to carry over your whole entitlement.
Questions
Common questions
Do bank holidays count towards my 28 days?
It depends on your employer. The law lets employers include bank/public holidays within your statutory 5.6-week entitlement, or give them as extra days on top — there’s no single legal rule. England and Wales normally have 8 bank holidays a year, Scotland 9, and Northern Ireland 10 (check gov.uk/bank-holidays for the exact current-year dates). Check your contract or staff handbook to see which applies to you.
I work irregular hours — how is my leave worked out?
Since the 2024 reforms, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue holiday as 12.07% of the hours they actually work in each pay period, rather than a fixed weekly entitlement. This applies to leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, which by 2026/27 covers essentially everyone.
What’s “rolled-up holiday pay”?
It’s an alternative way some employers pay irregular-hours/part-year workers their holiday pay — instead of paying you when you actually take leave, they add 12.07% on top of your normal pay every payslip, clearly itemised separately. It’s only allowed for irregular-hours and part-year workers, not workers with regular hours.
Can I lose my holiday if I don’t take it?
Generally yes — most statutory leave doesn’t carry over automatically. The main exceptions are missing leave due to sickness or family-related leave (maternity, paternity, adoption, parental), or if your employer didn’t give you a fair chance to take it or didn’t warn you it would be lost.
Does my holiday entitlement include unpaid leave I’ve taken?
No — this calculator covers your paid statutory holiday entitlement only. Unpaid leave (such as unpaid parental leave or a career break) is a separate arrangement agreed with your employer and doesn’t reduce your statutory paid holiday.
Where these figures come from. Statutory holiday entitlement, the 28-day cap, the part-time formula, first-year accrual, and the irregular-hours/part-year 12.07% method (including its rolled-up holiday pay variant) are taken from gov.uk. Holiday pay averaging rules and carry-over rules are taken from gov.uk. Bank holiday counts are the standard annual totals per nation from gov.uk — check gov.uk/bank-holidays directly for exact current-year dates, which this tool does not list. All figures were checked on 23 September 2026.
Holiday entitlement rights (gov.uk) · Holiday pay and entitlement reforms (gov.uk) · Overtime Pay Calculator
How we calculate · Editorial policy. This is general information, not legal advice.