Holiday Entitlement Calculator 2026

How it's calculated

Statutory paid holiday in Great Britain is set by the Working Time Regulations 1998. There are two regimes. A worker with a regular pattern gets 4 weeks (reg. 13) plus 1.6 weeks (reg. 13A), so 5.6 of their own working weeks, capped at 28 days: 5 days a week gives 28 days, 4 days gives 22.4, 3 days gives 16.8, and 6 or 7 days still give 28. If your leave year began before your job did, you get the share of the leave year left on your start date; when you leave, you are paid for your share of the year that has passed, less the leave you have taken (reg. 14). In the first year of a job, leave builds up by one twelfth a month for the purpose of taking it (reg. 15A). Irregular-hours and part-year workers (reg. 15F) instead accrue 12.07 % of the hours actually worked at the end of each pay period, rounded to whole hours, plus accrual during sick or statutory leave based on their average weekly hours before it (reg. 15C), up to 28 days in a leave year (reg. 15B).

Regular pattern (regs 13, 13A):
  Full-year days = min(days per week × 5.6, 28)
  Hours = days × (hours per week ÷ days per week)

Starter whose leave year began earlier (regs 13(5), 13A(5)):
  Days = full-year days × (days left in the leave year from the start date ÷ days in the leave year)

Leaver (reg. 14(3)):
  Untaken days = full-year days × (days of the leave year up to and including the last day ÷ days in the leave year) − days taken

First year of employment (reg. 15A):
  Leave that may be taken = full-year days ÷ 12 × months begun, raised to the next half or whole day

Irregular hours or part-year (regs 15B, 15C):
  Pay-period accrual = hours worked × 12.07 %
    + weeks of sick or statutory leave × average weekly hours before it × 12.07 %
  rounded to whole hours (30 minutes or more rounds up), and no more than 28 days in a leave year
  (12.07 % is the rate set in reg. 15B; 5.6 ÷ 46.4 is about 12.069 %)

Worked example

Take a part-time worker contracted to 3 days (22.5 hours) a week, employed for the whole leave year, with an hourly rate of £14 entered for the illustration:

This worker's statutory minimum is 16.8 days (126 hours) of paid leave, the same 5.6 weeks a full-time colleague gets. At a fixed £14 an hour that leave is worth £1,764, but holiday pay is a week's normal pay, which can include regular overtime and commission, so the amount due can be higher.

When your result may differ

This page gives the statutory minimum for one leave year in Great Britain. Your figures can differ for these reasons. Many employers give contractual leave above the statutory minimum, which this page leaves out, so your total can be higher. Leave carried over from an earlier year (for sickness, statutory leave, an employer who did not let you take it, or by agreement for the extra 1.6 weeks) adds to what you can take or be paid for on leaving, and is not counted here. The pay row is an illustration at a fixed hourly rate only: statutory holiday pay is a week's normal pay under reg. 16, which can include regular overtime, commission and allowances, so it can be higher. If you were paid rolled-up holiday pay (12.07 % added to your pay for work done, allowed for irregular-hours and part-year workers under reg. 16A), leave already paid that way is not paid again when you leave. If your pattern changed during the leave year, each part needs its own calculation, which this page does not do. Bank holidays do not change the minimum: in 2026 there are 8 in England and Wales and 10 in Scotland, and your contract says whether they count towards the 5.6 weeks or come on top. Northern Ireland has separate regulations and Scottish agricultural workers have their own rules; both show no figure here. Before 27 September 2026 this page reduced a starter's or leaver's entitlement by months rather than by leave-year dates, and gave irregular-hours workers no accrual during sick or statutory leave.

Rates and thresholds

Statutory holiday entitlement by working pattern, Working Time Regulations 1998, for leave years in 2026.

Sources & legal basis

Update log

• 2026-04-09 — Reviewed entitlement rules for the 2026 leave year; statutory minimum remains 5.6 weeks capped at 28 days.
• 2026-06-15 — Added worked example, working-pattern table and source table; documented the 12.07% accrual rule for irregular-hours and part-year workers.
• 2026-07-14 — Rechecked gov.uk holiday sources; added the 6-year holiday-pay recordkeeping rule effective from 6 April 2026.
• 2026-09-05 — Correction after review (P1-UK-2): for irregular-hours workers the days figure assumed a five-day week, so it read 31.4 days for every input and exceeded the 28-day cap applied to regular workers. Days are now derived from the days-per-week entered and capped at 28; without a days figure only hours are shown.
• 2026-09-05 — Correction after the UK Astra thread (evening of 2026-09-05): irregular-hours workers now get a per-pay-period accrual (hours worked × 12.07 %, whole hours, WTR reg. 15B) — the annual projection, days conversion and holiday-pay total for that branch were withdrawn.
• 2026-09-27 — Correction after review: the FAQ still taught 12.07 % × weekly hours × 52 (235.4 hours at 37.5 hours a week instead of 210) and rolled-up pay as 1/12.07 (£82.85 on £1,000 instead of £120.70); both are fixed. Irregular-hours workers now accrue during sick and statutory leave (reg. 15C: 4 weeks at a 30-hour average gives 14 hours, the page showed 0) and the 28-day cap is applied (reg. 15B(4)). Starters and leavers are worked out from leave-year dates (regs 13(5), 14(3)) instead of months, the first-year rule (reg. 15A) is shown, Northern Ireland and Scottish agricultural workers get no figure, blank fields show no result instead of 0, and the pay row is an illustration at the entered rate only.