Holiday Entitlement Calculator
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Informational estimate only, based on official GOV.UK guidance and assumes the person is eligible — see the eligibility notes below. Not legal or payroll advice.
Quick answer: Most employees get 5.6 weeks of statutory holiday a year — days per week × 5.6 for regular patterns, or 12.07% of hours worked for irregular-hours and zero-hours workers.
Written by Ruby Miller · HR & Employment Law Content Lead
How this is calculated
Most employees and workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of statutory paid holiday a year — this comes from regulation 13 and regulation 13A of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833), which together give 4 weeks plus an additional 1.6 weeks. For a regular working pattern, this is calculated as days worked per week × 5.6, capped at 28 days for anyone working 5 or more days a week, since the statutory maximum was never designed to exceed a standard 5-day working year.
For irregular-hours and zero-hours workers, holiday instead accrues at 12.07% of hours actually worked in each pay period. That percentage isn’t an arbitrary round number — it’s what falls out of the same 5.6-week entitlement expressed against the rest of the year: a year has 52.14 weeks, and 52.14 minus 5.6 weeks of leave leaves 46.54 working weeks, so 5.6 ÷ 46.54 ≈ 12.07%. In plain terms, for every hour actually worked, about 7 minutes and 15 seconds of that time converts into paid holiday.
Where this rule comes from
The 12.07% method itself isn’t written into the Regulations by name — it’s long-standing guidance from Acas and the former Department for Business, endorsed by tribunals as a reasonable, workable approximation of the underlying legal formula, and it became the codified default for irregular-hours and part-year workers whose leave year starts on or after 1 April 2024, following amendments made by the Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023.
Once you know your full entitlement, two follow-on questions tend to come next: how much have you actually accrued so far this year (use the Annual Leave Calculator), and what is each day of that leave actually worth in pay (use the Holiday Pay Calculator).
Entitlement by working pattern
The days-per-week method scales in a straight line until it hits the 28-day statutory cap. Here’s what that looks like across common patterns:
| Days worked per week | Calculation | Statutory minimum leave |
|---|---|---|
| 5 days | 5 × 5.6 | 28 days (cap applies) |
| 4 days | 4 × 5.6 | 22.4 days |
| 3 days | 3 × 5.6 | 16.8 days |
| 2 days | 2 × 5.6 | 11.2 days |
| 1 day | 1 × 5.6 | 5.6 days |
| 6 days | 6 × 5.6 = 33.6, capped | 28 days (cap applies) |
Anyone working more than 5 days a week doesn’t get extra statutory leave for it — the 28-day cap is a hard ceiling written into the Regulations, though a generous employer can of course still offer more as a contractual benefit.
Who this applies to
This calculator doesn’t check eligibility for you — it assumes you already qualify. To actually qualify, you need:
- Worker or employee status under UK employment law (most zero-hours and agency workers qualify).
- Entitlement builds from the first day of employment — no minimum qualifying period.
- Part-year and irregular-hours workers use the 12.07% method rather than the days-per-week method.
Special cases
Joining or leaving mid-year
This calculator gives the full-year figure for a regular pattern. If you’ve only worked part of the current leave year, use the Annual Leave Calculator to pro-rate it to the actual period worked.
Term-time-only staff
Term-time-only workers (common in schools) are part-year workers and, since 2024, generally use the 12.07%-of-hours method rather than the days-per-week method, even if their pattern looks “regular” during term time.
Changing from full-time to part-time (or back)
Entitlement gets recalculated from the date the working pattern changes. Each period is worked out separately and added together. Applying one method to the whole year would just be wrong.
Agency workers
Most agency workers are “workers” for statutory purposes and build up leave through the agency that pays them, using whichever method — days-per-week or 12.07% of hours — matches how their assignment is actually structured, even if that assignment moves between different end clients.
Maternity, adoption and other family leave
Statutory holiday continues to accrue as normal throughout all types of statutory family leave, including the unpaid portion — someone on a full year of maternity leave still builds up the full 5.6-week entitlement across that year, even though they weren’t actually at work for most of it.
Worked examples
What this calculator doesn’t cover
- Does not handle part-year starters or leavers part-way through a leave year — it calculates a full-year figure.
- Does not factor in bank holidays separately — in the UK, bank holidays are usually part of, not in addition to, the statutory 5.6 weeks.
- Does not account for any more generous contractual holiday entitlement above the statutory minimum.
- Does not calculate carry-over of unused leave into the next leave year.
Where this trips people up
We field the same handful of questions about this calculation over and over. If you only read one section on this page other than the calculator itself, make it this one.
- ✕Adding bank holidays on top of the 5.6 weeks. This is the one we hear most, almost always in December. Unless a contract explicitly says otherwise, the UK’s 8 bank holidays a year are absorbed into, not added to, the statutory minimum.
- ✕Applying the days-per-week method to term-time or seasonal staff. Since the 2024 leave-year reform, part-year and irregular-hours workers almost always use the 12.07%-of-hours method, even if their working pattern looks “regular” while term is in session.
- ✕Forgetting the 28-day cap. Someone working 6 days a week doesn’t get 33.6 days of statutory leave — the entitlement stops at 28, though a contract can still grant more voluntarily.
- ✕Using calendar weeks instead of the actual leave year. “5.6 weeks” is measured against the employer’s defined 52-week leave year, not the calendar year, and the two often don’t align.
FAQs
Do bank holidays count towards my statutory entitlement?
In most cases, yes — bank holidays sit inside the 5.6-week statutory minimum rather than on top of it, unless a contract specifically says otherwise.
Do zero-hours workers get holiday entitlement?
Yes. Zero-hours and irregular-hours workers accrue statutory holiday at 12.07% of hours actually worked, rather than the days-per-week method used for regular patterns.
Why is the cap exactly 28 days and not something else?
28 days is what you get from 5 days a week × 5.6 weeks, the maximum a standard full-time pattern can reach. The Working Time Regulations cap statutory leave at 28 days regardless of how many days a week someone actually works, so a 6- or 7-day week doesn’t earn extra statutory leave.
Does part-time work reduce my holiday pro-rata, or do I lose out?
It’s pro-rated, not reduced unfairly — part-time workers get exactly the same proportion of leave as a full-time colleague on the same daily pattern. Working 3 days a week gives 3 × 5.6 = 16.8 days, the same ratio a full-timer gets at 5 × 5.6 = 28.
What happens to my leave entitlement if I start or leave partway through the year?
You build up entitlement pro-rata to the proportion of the leave year actually worked. This calculator gives the full-year figure for a regular pattern — for a partial year, use the Annual Leave Calculator to pro-rate it against the exact weeks worked.
Can my employer round my entitlement down?
There’s no statutory requirement to round in the employer’s favour — some employers round entitlement up to the nearest half or whole day for administrative simplicity, but rounding down below the statutory calculation would fall short of the legal minimum.
Is unpaid leave, like a career break, included when calculating entitlement?
It depends on whether the time counts as a “week” worked under your contract. Genuinely unpaid periods such as an unpaid career break generally don’t accrue statutory leave in the same way paid weeks do — check the specific type of unpaid leave against current guidance, since some (like unpaid parental leave) are treated differently from others.
Does this apply the same way in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
The 5.6-week statutory minimum and the 12.07% method apply UK-wide under the same Working Time Regulations. Northern Ireland runs its own, broadly equivalent employment law framework, so always double-check region-specific guidance for anything beyond the headline entitlement figure.