Annual leave entitlement in the United Kingdom
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Employees in the UK are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave per year — that is 28 days for someone working five days a week, including bank holidays.
How the entitlement works
The 5.6-week figure is set by the Working Time Regulations 1998. For a standard five-day working week, this comes to 28 days. That 28-day total can include the eight UK bank holidays, so an employer can require workers to use their bank holiday days as part of the allowance rather than offering them on top.
Part-time workers get the same entitlement on a pro-rata basis. Someone working three days a week is entitled to 5.6 × 3 = 16.8 days per year. The principle is the same: the entitlement scales with the number of days or hours worked.
There is no legal requirement to give more than 28 days, but many employers do. A contractual entitlement above the statutory minimum is perfectly common and is simply a matter of what you agree with your employees.
When entitlement starts and how it accrues
Statutory leave begins to accrue from the first day of employment. There is no qualifying period. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, day-one rights have been strengthened further, so employers should not attempt to impose a waiting period before a new starter can take any leave at all.
Leave accrues throughout the year. For administrative purposes, most employers set a fixed leave year — often January to December or April to March — and calculate the full entitlement at the start of that year. Alternatively, you can calculate leave on an accrual basis, which is particularly useful for workers who join or leave mid-year or whose hours vary.
For workers with irregular hours or part-year arrangements (such as term-time workers), leave accrues at the rate of 12.07% of hours worked in the relevant reference period. This method follows the reforms introduced for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024.
How holiday pay is calculated
Statutory holiday pay must reflect a worker's normal remuneration, not just their basic hourly or weekly rate. For employees with regular hours and pay, this is straightforward: they receive their usual pay while on leave.
For workers with variable pay — including those who regularly receive overtime, commission or shift allowances — the correct rate is based on the average pay earned over a 52-week reference period (ignoring any weeks in which no pay was received). This matters in practice: paying only basic rate when a worker regularly earns more could leave you exposed to an unlawful deduction from wages claim.
The 5.6-week entitlement is made up of two distinct elements: four weeks derived from the EU Working Time Directive and an additional 1.6 weeks under domestic law. The calculation rules described above apply to the four-week portion; the 1.6-week portion can, in principle, be paid at basic rate, though most employers apply a single consistent approach for simplicity.
Carrying over leave and paying it out
The general rule is that statutory leave cannot be paid out in lieu while the employment continues. The only exception is on termination, when any accrued but untaken statutory leave must be paid out as part of the final salary — this is sometimes called payment in lieu of notice of holiday (PILON of leave).
Carrying over leave is also restricted by default. Workers should ordinarily take their full entitlement within the leave year. However, carry-over is permitted where a worker was unable to take leave due to sickness, maternity or other family leave, or where the employer failed to give adequate notice or opportunity to take leave. In those cases, up to four weeks can be carried forward for up to 18 months.
Employers who routinely allow carry-over as a perk — beyond what the law requires — should make sure their contracts are clear about which portion is contractual and which is statutory, to avoid unintended liability.
Practical points for employers
Notice requirements. To require a worker to take leave on specific dates, you must give at least twice as many days' notice as the leave period (so two days' notice for one day of leave). Workers must give similar notice if they want to take leave on a particular date, unless the contract specifies otherwise.
Refusing leave requests. You can decline a leave request, but you cannot prevent a worker from taking their full statutory entitlement by the end of the leave year without good reason. Doing so, and failing to facilitate it, creates carry-over obligations.
Record-keeping. You are not legally required to use specific software, but you do need to be able to demonstrate that workers have received their full entitlement. Keeping accurate leave records is good practice and useful if a dispute arises.
Enhanced entitlements. Anything above the 28-day statutory floor is entirely at your discretion and governed by the employment contract. Enhanced leave — whether extra days, the ability to buy or sell leave, or sabbatical schemes — can be a meaningful part of a benefits package without any legal complexity, as long as the statutory minimum is met first.
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