Minimum Holiday Entitlement UK Calculator
Last verified: September 2026 · Sources: GOV.UK, Acas
What Is the Minimum Holiday Entitlement UK?
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, almost every worker in the UK — not just employees on permanent contracts, but casual staff, agency workers, and zero-hours workers too — has a legal right to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday every year. The minimum holiday entitlement UK law provides is 28 days for someone working a standard five-day week. This right starts on day one of employment. There's no qualifying period to wait through, and no minimum length of service required before it kicks in.
It's worth being precise about what "minimum" means here. This is a legal floor, not a target. An employer can offer more generous holiday as a contractual benefit — plenty do, often landing somewhere around 33 days once bank holidays are factored in — but they cannot legally offer less than the statutory 28 days for a full-time worker. If your contract says otherwise, the contract is wrong, not the law.
The 28-day figure is also a cap, not just a baseline. Even if you work six or seven days a week, your statutory minimum entitlement doesn't keep climbing past 28 days. The regulations were written around a five-day working pattern, and the cap reflects that.
Why UK Holiday Entitlement Is Actually Two Separate Rights
Most people treat the 5.6 weeks as one single pot, and for day-to-day purposes that's fine. But legally, it's made up of two distinct pieces, and the distinction matters more than it looks:
- Regulation 13 leave — 4 weeks (20 days), which comes from the EU Working Time Directive.
- Regulation 13A leave — an additional 1.6 weeks (8 days), added on top by UK domestic law.
This split becomes relevant if you're dealing with carry-over into a new leave year, or working out holiday pay during sickness absence — the rules for each portion aren't always identical. For everyday entitlement calculations, though, treating it as one 5.6-week total is accurate and is exactly how the statutory minimum is applied.
Part-Time Holiday Entitlement in the UK
Part-time workers get exactly the same statutory right as full-time workers: 5.6 weeks. The number of days that translates to is simply proportional to how many days you actually work. The minimum holiday entitlement UK rules for part-time workers are the same 5.6 weeks, pro-rated to their working days.
The calculation is: days worked per week × 5.6. So someone working three days a week is entitled to at least 3 × 5.6 = 16.8 days a year. Someone working two days a week gets 2 × 5.6 = 11.2 days. There's no rounding rule built into the regulations, so 16.8 days genuinely means 16.8 days — employers sometimes round this up in an employee's favour, but they're not required to round down.
If your hours vary slightly week to week but follow a broadly fixed pattern (say, always three days but sometimes different days), you're still treated as a fixed-pattern worker for this purpose. The irregular-hours rules below only apply when your hours are genuinely variable, not just occasionally rescheduled.
Zero-Hours and Irregular-Hours Holiday Entitlement
Zero-hours contracts and other genuinely irregular-hours arrangements don't fit neatly into a "days per week" calculation, because there's no fixed pattern to multiply. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, these workers accrue holiday using the 12.07% method: multiply the hours actually worked in a pay period by 12.07% to get the holiday hours built up in that period. This is the zero hours holiday entitlement UK approach that employers must follow.
That 12.07% figure isn't arbitrary — it comes from dividing 5.6 weeks by the 46.4 weeks left in the year once you've deducted 5.6 weeks of leave (52 − 5.6 = 46.4, then 5.6 ÷ 46.4 ≈ 12.07%). It's designed to produce, over a full year, the same proportional entitlement a fixed-pattern worker would get.
There are two ways employers can handle this in practice:
- Accrued leave taken as time off — the worker builds up hours of paid leave and takes them as actual days off, paid at their usual rate.
- Rolled-up holiday pay — reintroduced for irregular-hours and part-year workers from 1 January 2024, this pays the 12.07% uplift directly on top of every payslip, as a clearly itemised separate amount, rather than saving it up for time taken off later.
Rolled-up holiday pay is only lawful for genuinely irregular-hours or part-year workers — it can't be used for staff with fixed, regular schedules.
Do Bank Holidays Count Toward the Minimum?
This is one of the most common points of confusion, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on your contract. The minimum holiday entitlement UK does not automatically include bank holidays — it depends on your contract. There is no automatic legal right to take bank holidays off with pay on top of your statutory leave. Employers handle this in one of two ways:
- Included in the 28 days — the most common setup. With 8 bank holidays a year in England and Wales, this leaves 20 days of flexible leave to book yourself.
- In addition to the 28 days — some employers offer bank holidays on top of the statutory minimum, which can add up to 36 days total. This is more generous than the law requires and must be set out clearly in the contract.
If your contract says "20 days plus bank holidays," that phrasing means you're getting the standard 28-day statutory minimum overall — it isn't extra on top of the legal floor, it's just described differently. If you're required to work on a bank holiday, your employer still has to make sure you get your full 5.6 weeks somewhere else in the year.
How Holiday Entitlement Is Enforced in 2026
Enforcement in this area has changed recently. The Fair Work Agency, a new state body created to enforce various employment rights, was established on 7 April 2026. It isn't yet actively enforcing holiday pay and entitlement rules, but it's expected to gain that power, with the ability to demand repayment of underpaid holiday pay and apply a penalty of up to 200% of the underpayment — capped at £20,000 per underpaid worker, halved to 100% if the employer pays within 14 days. The Employment Rights Act 2025 has also introduced tighter record-keeping requirements for employers from April 2026 onward, which should make it easier to spot underpayment in the first place.
None of this changes what you're entitled to — the minimum holiday entitlement UK has been the law since 1998 — but it does mean employers now face a more direct enforcement route than relying solely on individual employment tribunal claims.
Common Mistakes Employers Make
- Treating "20 days plus bank holidays" and "28 days including bank holidays" as different offers when the contract wording doesn't actually say which one applies, leaving the entitlement ambiguous.
- Applying a fixed days-per-week calculation to genuinely irregular-hours staff, instead of the 12.07% accrual method they're legally required to use.
- Paying rolled-up holiday pay to staff with regular, fixed schedules — this method is only lawful for irregular-hours and part-year workers.
- Rounding entitlement down instead of up when a pro-rata calculation produces a fraction of a day.
- Offering payment in lieu of statutory holiday while someone is still employed — this is only permitted when employment actually ends.
Minimum Holiday Entitlement UK — FAQ
What is the minimum holiday entitlement in the UK?
The minimum holiday entitlement UK law sets is 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which works out to 28 days for someone working a standard five-day week. This is the legal minimum under the Working Time Regulations 1998, and it applies from your first day of work.
Is the minimum holiday entitlement 28 days for everyone?
Only for full-time workers on a five-day week. Part-time workers get the same 5.6 weeks, but proportional to their working days — for example, 16.8 days for a three-day week.
Does minimum holiday entitlement include bank holidays?
It can, but doesn't have to. Whether your 28 days includes the 8 bank holidays in England and Wales or sits on top of them depends entirely on what your employment contract says.
How is holiday entitlement calculated for zero-hours workers?
Using the 12.07% accrual method — hours worked in a pay period multiplied by 12.07% gives the holiday hours accrued for that period. This has applied since leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024.
Can my employer offer less than the statutory minimum?
No. 5.6 weeks (28 days for a full-time worker) is a legal floor. Employers can offer more, but any contract term offering less than the statutory minimum is not enforceable.
The Bottom Line
To summarise the minimum holiday entitlement UK position: everyone gets at least 5.6 weeks of paid holiday, full-time workers get 28 days, and part-time or irregular-hours workers get a proportional equivalent worked out with a straightforward formula. Where things get genuinely confusing is bank holidays and how your specific contract is worded — that's always worth checking directly rather than assuming. Compare your contract against the legal minimum to see whether your employer is offering the statutory floor or something better.
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