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

6 October 2026 · Calcosmo editorial team

Almost every worker in the UK is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday per year. If you work five days a week, that is 28 days, which can include the eight bank holidays. Part-time workers get the same 5.6 weeks pro rata, and workers with irregular hours build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours they work. Working in the Netherlands instead? Then you also get an 8% holiday allowance; work it out with the Dutch holiday pay calculator.

The basic rule: 5.6 weeks

The legal minimum (statutory holiday entitlement) is 5.6 times your normal working week:

The statutory entitlement is capped at 28 days, so someone working six days a week also gets 28. Your employer can count bank holidays as part of the 28 days; they do not have to give them on top. Many contracts are more generous, for example 25 days plus bank holidays (33 days in total).

If you work a fixed number of hours rather than days, multiply your weekly hours by 5.6. At 30 hours a week that is 168 hours of paid holiday.

Irregular hours and part-year workers: 12.07%

For workers with irregular hours (such as zero-hours contracts) and part-year workers, holiday for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024 builds up at 12.07% of the hours actually worked in each pay period. The figure comes from 5.6 weeks divided by the 46.4 weeks a full-timer works: 5.6 ÷ 46.4 = 12.07%.

Example: you work 100 hours in a month. You accrue 100 × 12.07% = 12.07 hours of paid holiday.

For these workers, employers may also use rolled-up holiday pay: an extra 12.07% on top of every payslip instead of pay at the time you take leave. At £12.50 an hour and 100 hours, that is £1,250 plus £150.88 holiday pay, shown as a separate line on the payslip.

How much is a week's holiday pay?

Holiday pay should be your normal pay, not just basic pay. For the first four weeks of leave, that includes regular overtime, commission and certain allowances, averaged over the previous 52 paid weeks. For the remaining 1.6 weeks, basic pay is enough unless your contract says otherwise.

Example: a full-timer earning £600 a week has a day's pay of £120. Their 28 days of statutory holiday are worth 28 × £120 = £3,360 a year.

Starting or leaving a job

• Starting mid-year: you build up holiday in proportion. Starting on 1 October in a January–December leave year gives you about a quarter of your entitlement: 7 days for a five-day week.
• Leaving: you must be paid for statutory holiday you have built up but not taken. If you have taken more than you built up, your employer can only deduct it from your final pay if your contract allows that.

Can I be paid instead of taking holiday?

Not while you are employed. Statutory holiday must be taken as time off; you can only be paid in lieu when you leave. Under the rolled-up system for irregular-hours workers, the pay is included on each payslip, but you are still entitled to take the time off (unpaid at that point).