Holiday Pay Calculator United Kingdom

This holiday pay calculator works out UK statutory holiday and the pay owed: 5.6 weeks for a fixed pattern, or 12.07 per cent accrual for irregular hours.

Working pattern

Days worked per week days

Weeks worked in the leave year weeks

Average weekly pay £

Advanced options

Hours actually worked in the period hours

Hourly rate £

Holiday already taken (days) days

Holiday pay owed —

Full statutory entitlement (days) —

Holiday accrued (days) —

Holiday taken (days) —

Holiday still owed (days) —

Holiday accrued (hours) —

A day of holiday is worth —

Full entitlement value —

Accrued entitlement (weeks) —

We always strive to use the latest data for every variable so our results and reports are as accurate as possible. Even so, errors are possible — you should not rely on this tool or its report alone, and we accept no liability for any decision made based on it.

What it does

The Holiday Pay Calculator works out your statutory paid holiday entitlement and the holiday pay owed to you, for a fixed weekly pattern or for irregular-hours and part-year work.

Data sources & parameters

The figures below drive this calculator. We keep them aligned with the latest official guidance, and each result recalculates automatically whenever a value changes.

Parameter	Value	Source	Last updated
Statutory paid holiday entitlement (weeks per leave year)	5.6	gov.uk	Effective 2026-04-06Statutory paid holiday entitlement (5.6 weeks, capped at 28 days for a 5-day week)
Statutory holiday cap (days per leave year)	28	gov.uk	Effective 2026-04-06Maximum statutory holiday days an employer must give (cap on the 5.6 weeks)
Holiday accrual rate for irregular-hours and part-year workers	0.1207	gov.uk	Effective 2026-04-06Holiday accrual for irregular-hours/part-year workers: 12.07% of hours worked

The formula

Entitlement = min(days per week × statutory weeks, statutory cap); holiday pay owed = (accrued days − days taken) × (weekly pay ÷ days per week)

How it works

For a fixed pattern it multiplies the statutory weeks of leave by the days you work each week, caps the result at the statutory day cap, and pro-rates it over the weeks of the leave year you have worked. For irregular hours it applies the statutory accrual percentage to the hours you actually worked. It then prices a day of holiday from your average weekly pay or hourly rate.

Where it is used

Checking statutory holiday entitlement for a part-time pattern
Working out holiday pay owed in a final salary payment
Pricing accrued leave for an irregular-hours or part-year worker

Worked example

On a five-day week at £600.00 a week, the statutory entitlement is … days. After … days taken, … days are still owed, worth … at … a day.

This calculator turns how much you work and how much you are paid into the two figures that matter: how many days of paid leave you have earned and what they are worth. It covers the UK statutory scheme for people on a fixed weekly pattern and for people on irregular hours or part-year contracts, whose entitlement works differently.

How the statutory entitlement works

The Working Time Regulations give almost every worker in Great Britain 5.6 weeks of paid holiday in each leave year. The figure is in weeks, not days, which is why part-time entitlement is so often got wrong. Your entitlement in days is your normal working days per week times 5.6, capped at 28 days.

Five days a week gives 28 days, four days 22.4, three days 16.8 and two and a half days 14. Six or seven days a week would give 33.6 or 39.2 days, but the cap stops the entitlement at 28. A part-time worker gets a proportionate number of their own working days, whatever length those days are.

Bank holidays sit inside this entitlement. There is no separate legal right to paid time off on Christmas Day or Easter Monday, and an employer may count the eight usual bank holidays towards the 5.6 weeks, which is what a contract offering “20 days plus bank holidays” does. Anything above 5.6 weeks is contractual holiday, and your contract sets the rules for carrying it over, buying it or selling it.

Irregular hours and part-year workers

For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, workers with irregular hours and workers who only work part of the year, such as casual, zero-hours, agency and some term-time staff, build up leave at 12.07 per cent of the hours they actually work in each pay period, rather than having a fixed annual entitlement.

The percentage comes from the 5.6-week rule. A year has 52 weeks; 5.6 are holiday, leaving 46.4 working weeks, and 5.6 divided by 46.4 is 0.1207. Work 600 hours and you build up 72.42 hours of paid leave; work 1,000 hours and you build up 120.7 hours.

Employers of irregular hours and part-year workers may instead pay rolled-up holiday pay, adding 12.07 per cent to each payslip rather than paying when leave is taken. The uplift must then be shown separately on the payslip, so you can check it against the hours worked.

What a day of holiday is worth

Holiday must be paid at a week’s pay for each week of leave. On fixed hours and fixed pay, a week’s pay is a week’s salary, and a day of holiday is that figure divided by the days worked each week. Someone on £600 a week over five days has holiday days worth £120 each.

For variable pay, a week’s pay is the average over the previous 52 paid weeks, skipping unpaid weeks and looking back up to 104 weeks to find 52 paid ones. For at least the first four weeks of leave, the average must include the pay you normally receive, such as regular overtime, commission and shift or unsocial hours premiums, not just basic pay. Leaving out regular overtime has been the subject of repeated litigation and remains a common underpayment.

The calculator prices a day from your average weekly pay for a fixed pattern, and from your hourly rate times your average hours in a working day for irregular hours.

Holiday pay when you leave

When employment ends, you must be paid for statutory holiday built up in the current leave year and not yet taken. The amount is pro-rated: work 26 of the 52 weeks on a three-day pattern and you have built up half of 16.8 days, or 8.4 days. Subtract the days you have taken and price the rest at your daily rate. Over a full year on five days a week at £600, with 10 days taken, 18 days are left, worth £2,160.

If you have taken more leave than you built up, your employer can recover the excess from your final pay only if your contract says so. The tool never shows a negative balance; it sets the outstanding days to zero at minimum, so the figure is the pay owed to you.

How to use this holiday pay calculator

Choose the working pattern that matches your contract. Enter the days you normally work each week, the weeks of the leave year worked so far and your average weekly pay. On irregular hours, switch the pattern, enter the hours worked in the period and your hourly rate, and the tool applies the 12.07 per cent accrual.

The output shows your full statutory entitlement, the amount built up so far, the days already taken, the balance owed and its cash value. The chart lines those figures up so you can see whether you are ahead of or behind your accrual.

The 5.6 weeks, the 28-day cap and the 12.07 per cent rate are stored as parameters and updated when the law changes.

This is an estimate to help you plan and check a payslip. It is not legal or financial advice and does not replace your contract or a formal calculation from your employer.

About This Holiday Pay Calculator

Use this holiday pay calculator to get an instant, accurate estimate. The figures follow official GOV.UK guidance and every rate and threshold is kept up to date for 2026. Adjust the inputs above to match your situation, or browse all our calculators to plan your next step.

Tax year 2026

Frequently asked questions

How much paid holiday am I entitled to in the UK?

Almost every worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday in each leave year. In days, that is your usual working days a week times 5.6, capped at 28 days. Five days a week gives 28 days, three days a week gives 16.8 days, and six days a week is still capped at 28 rather than 33.6.

Does the 28 day cap include bank holidays?

It can. There is no automatic right to paid time off on a bank holiday in the UK, and an employer can count bank holidays as part of your 5.6 weeks. A contract offering 20 days plus the eight usual bank holidays meets the statutory minimum exactly. Check your contract, because some employers give bank holidays on top.

How is holiday pay calculated for irregular hours or part-year work?

For irregular hours and part-year workers, holiday builds up at 12.07 per cent of the hours actually worked in each pay period. The figure is 5.6 weeks divided by the 46.4 remaining working weeks in the year. The calculator applies that percentage to the hours you enter and converts the result into days using your average hours in a working day.

What is a week's pay for holiday pay purposes?

For workers without fixed hours or fixed pay, a week's pay is the average of the previous 52 paid weeks, ignoring weeks with no pay and looking back up to 104 weeks to find 52 paid ones. For at least the first four weeks of leave, regular overtime, commission and shift premiums you normally receive must be included, not just basic pay.

Am I paid for unused holiday when I leave a job?

Yes. When you leave, you must be paid for statutory holiday built up in the current leave year and not taken. The tool estimates this by pro-rating the full entitlement over the weeks you worked, subtracting the days already taken and pricing the rest at your daily rate. Contractual holiday above the statutory minimum depends on your contract.

How accurate is this holiday pay estimate?

It is an estimate for planning and checking a payslip, not a legal calculation. Real cases can involve rounding rules in your contract, carried-over leave, sickness or family leave during the year, term-time patterns and averaging rules for variable pay. If a figure looks wrong, raise it with your employer or ask Acas.

About the author

Written and reviewed by

Taha Kheirandish

Economics student and independent researcher

Taha Kheirandish reads tax codes the way other people read maps — to find out where a system actually leads, not where it claims to go.

He is an economics student, and his work here is comparative by design. A pension deferral bonus in Quebec, a commuting allowance in Germany, a rent-increase ceiling in the Netherlands: each is a decision a government made about how money should move, and each reads differently once you set it beside eight others. He builds and checks these calculators across nine markets from primary sources — the regulation rather than a summary of it, the ministry’s own circular rather than a news item quoting it.

That is the editorial standard of the site as well as his habit. Every rate, threshold and bracket here carries the document it was read from and the date it takes effect, and gets re-checked when the law moves rather than when someone happens to notice.

He is a researcher, not a licensed adviser, and nothing on this site is personal financial advice. It is arithmetic done carefully with its sources shown — so that you can check it, and take it to someone who is.

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