UK holiday entitlement calculator

What this calculator does

Holiday entitlement in the UK sounds simple until you look at your own contract. Someone says "you get 28 days", but you work three days a week, or you started in August, or your contract mentions bank holidays and you are not sure whether that is on top or included.

This calculator answers the specific question: given how you actually work, how many days of paid leave are you legally owed? It applies the statutory rule, applies the legal cap, and pro-rates it if you are only working part of the leave year.

Using it

Days you work per week

This is how many days you are contracted to work in a normal week, not how many hours. A three-day week is three days whether those days are four hours long or ten. The law measures holiday in weeks, so your working pattern is what matters, not the length of your shifts.

If your pattern genuinely varies week to week — zero hours, bank shifts, irregular rotas — this calculator is the wrong tool. You accrue leave from hours actually worked instead, and the official GOV.UK calculator handles that case properly.

Months of the leave year you will work

Leave this at twelve unless you are joining or leaving partway through. A "leave year" is whatever twelve-month period your employer uses — often from your start date, or from 1 January or 1 April. Your contract will say.

Entering six gives you half a year's entitlement, which is exactly how pro-rating works in practice.

The 5.6-week rule

Almost every worker in the UK is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. That includes part-time workers, agency workers and most people on zero-hours contracts. It is one of the few employment rights that applies from your first day.

The word that does the work is weeks. Your entitlement is measured in your own working weeks, not in a fixed number of days. This is why the answer changes with your pattern and why part-time figures come out uneven.

Why full time gives exactly 28 days

Five days multiplied by 5.6 weeks is 28. That is where the familiar number comes from — and it is also the legal maximum, capped at 28 days.

Why working six days does not give you more

Six days times 5.6 weeks would be 33.6 days, but the cap stops it at 28. The chart above the calculator shows this — the bar keeps growing until it meets the cap line, and the grey portion is what the cap removes. Your employer can choose to give more, but the law does not require it.

The bank holiday trap

This is the single most misunderstood thing about UK holiday, and it costs people eight days a year without them noticing.

There is no automatic legal right to paid time off on a bank holiday. Your employer is allowed to count the eight bank holidays as part of your 5.6 weeks. Two contracts can both say "28 days" and mean very different things.

The coloured blocks are days you choose. The grey blocks are bank holidays, which you do not choose. Check which version your contract describes.

"28 days including bank holidays" is the legal minimum and leaves you twenty days of your own choosing. "28 days plus bank holidays" is genuinely more generous and leaves you all twenty-eight. When comparing job offers, this is worth more than a small difference in salary — and it is the detail most candidates never ask about.

If your contract is vague, ask. The answer should be in your contract or staff handbook, and your employer has to tell you.

Part-time and changing hours

Three days a week gives 16.8 days. Four days gives 22.4. These look like rounding errors and they are not — they are exact proportions of the same 5.6 weeks a full-time colleague gets.

Employers often round up to whole days for practicality, which is allowed. Rounding down is not.

If you change your hours mid-year

Leave you already built up at your old pattern is not reduced when you change to a new one. In practice your employer should work out entitlement for each portion of the leave year separately and add them together. If someone recalculates your whole year at the new, lower pattern and takes days off you, that is not right.

Joining or leaving mid-year

Your entitlement is pro-rated for the part of the leave year you work. Six months of a five-day week gives fourteen days rather than twenty-eight.

When you leave, your employer must pay you for any leave you built up but did not take. This appears in your final payslip and is taxed as normal pay.

The reverse can also apply: if you have taken more leave than you had accrued when you leave, your employer can deduct the excess from your final pay — but only if your contract explicitly allows it.

Entitlement is not the same as pay

This calculator works out how many days you are owed. How much you get paid for those days is a separate question, and for some people a harder one.

If your pay is the same every week, holiday pay is simply your normal week's pay. If it varies — commission, regular overtime, shift premiums, bonuses tied to work done — holiday pay should be based on your average earnings over the previous 52 weeks in which you worked.

Booking and refusing leave

Your employer must let you take your statutory entitlement, but they do not have to agree to the specific dates you ask for.

They can refuse a request, provided they give you notice at least as long as the leave you asked for — refusing a week off needs a week's notice. They can also require you to take leave at particular times, such as a Christmas shutdown, with twice as much notice as the length of the leave.

What they cannot do is prevent you taking your 5.6 weeks at all, or pay you instead of giving you the time off while you are still employed. Paying in lieu of untaken statutory holiday is only lawful when your employment ends.

Carrying leave over

Statutory leave is generally use-it-or-lose-it within the leave year. There are exceptions — notably where you could not take it because of sickness or family leave. Contractual leave above the statutory minimum can be carried over if your contract allows it.

What this calculator cannot do

It assumes a regular weekly working pattern. It will not fit you if your hours vary week to week, if you work term-time only, or if you are on a part-year contract — those accrue leave from hours worked, and the official GOV.UK calculator handles them.

It calculates statutory entitlement, so it does not know about a more generous contract, long-service extra days, or leave purchase schemes. It also tells you days, not money — holiday pay for variable earnings needs the 52-week average described above.

And it does not apply to the genuinely self-employed, who have no statutory holiday rights. If you are labelled self-employed but work like an employee, that classification may be wrong, and Acas can advise.

Sickness, maternity and holiday

Holiday keeps building up while you are away from work on almost every kind of statutory leave. This surprises people, and employers get it wrong often enough to be worth checking.

While you are off sick

You continue to accrue holiday during sickness absence, however long it lasts. If you are ill during a period of booked holiday, you can usually ask for those days to be treated as sick leave instead and take the holiday later.

If you could not take your leave because you were off sick, you are generally allowed to carry it into the next leave year rather than losing it.

While you are on maternity or parental leave

Holiday accrues throughout maternity, adoption, paternity and shared parental leave — including the full 52 weeks of maternity leave. Because you cannot take holiday and maternity leave at the same time, the accrued leave is normally carried over.

Many people take the accrued holiday immediately before returning, effectively extending their time off on full pay. It is worth asking about.

Common employer mistakes

None of these are unusual, and none of them are lawful.

• Rounding part-time entitlement down. 16.8 days becomes "16 days". Rounding up is fine; rounding down is not.
• Refusing all leave in a busy period without notice. Employers can refuse specific dates, but they must give proper notice and cannot block your statutory entitlement entirely.
• Paying holiday on basic pay only when you regularly work overtime or earn commission. Holiday pay should reflect your normal earnings.
• "Use it or lose it" applied to leave you could not take because of sickness or family leave.
• Not paying accrued holiday when you leave. This is owed in your final pay, every time.

If any of these apply to you, raise it with your employer in writing first. Acas gives free advice if that does not resolve it, and there are time limits on claims.

A worked example

Someone starts a four-day-a-week job on 1 July. Their employer's leave year runs January to December, so they will work six months of it.

From January they would get the full 22.4 days. And if their contract says "including bank holidays", several of those 11.2 days are already spoken for.

Questions people ask

How much holiday am I legally entitled to?

5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, capped at 28 days. Almost every worker in the UK gets this, including part-time workers, agency workers and most people on zero-hours contracts.

"Weeks" is the key word — your entitlement is measured in your own working weeks, not in a fixed number of days.

Why does working five days a week give exactly 28 days?

Five days multiplied by 5.6 weeks is 28. That is where the familiar full-time figure comes from — and it is also the legal maximum, which is why working more days does not give you more.

I work six days a week. Why do I not get more than 28 days?

Six days times 5.6 weeks would be 33.6 days, but statutory entitlement is capped at 28 days however many days you work. Your employer can choose to give you more, but the law does not require it.

Do bank holidays count towards my 28 days?

They can, and this is the single most common misunderstanding about UK holiday. There is no automatic legal right to paid time off on a bank holiday. Your employer is allowed to count the eight bank holidays as part of your 5.6 weeks.

Some contracts give you 28 days plus bank holidays, which is more generous than the law requires. Others give 20 days plus 8 bank holidays, which is exactly the legal minimum. Check your contract — this is decided there, not by law.

I work part time. Why is my entitlement an odd number like 16.8 days?

Because it is a genuine proportion rather than a rounded figure. Three days a week times 5.6 weeks is 16.8 days. You are getting exactly the same 5.6 weeks as a full-time colleague, measured in your shorter week.

Employers often round up for convenience, but they cannot round down.

What if I join or leave partway through the year?

Your entitlement is pro-rated for the part of the leave year you work. Six months of a five-day week gives 14 days rather than 28. Use the months field above to work this out.

If you leave with holiday you have built up but not taken, your employer must pay you for it in your final pay.

What about zero-hours or irregular hours work?

If your hours vary, you build up leave based on the hours you have actually worked rather than getting a fixed number of days at the start of the year. This calculator assumes a regular pattern, so for irregular hours use the official calculator on GOV.UK instead.

Can my employer refuse my holiday request?

Yes. They must let you take your statutory entitlement, but they can refuse specific dates as long as they give you proper notice — at least as many days' notice as the length of the holiday you asked for. They can also require you to take leave at certain times, such as a Christmas shutdown.

What they cannot do is prevent you taking your 5.6 weeks at all, or pay you instead of giving you the time off while you are still employed.