Annual leave calculator

By Leon Finnerty · Last reviewed October 2026

Most workers get 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year. To work out your annual leave in days, multiply the days you work each week by 5.6: 5 days gives 28 days, 3 days gives 16.8. Statutory leave is capped at 28 days. Enter your work pattern below to see it in days and hours. If your hours change from week to week, use the irregular hours calculator instead.

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The statutory minimum, and who gets it

Almost every worker — not just employees on permanent contracts, but almost anyone classed as a "worker", including agency staff and people on casual or zero-hours arrangements — has a legal right to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave each year. In Great Britain, for most workers, that figure is not one number in one place: it's two separate entitlements added together. Regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) gives 4 weeks. Regulation 13A, adds a further 1.6 weeks. It came into force on 1 October 2007 and was phased in, reaching the full 1.6 weeks for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2009. Add them and you get 5.6 weeks — and it's reg 13A, not reg 13, that also caps the combined total at 28 days, since that's the regulation dealing with the combined entitlement.

Two groups get their leave under different rules. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, regulations 13 and 13A no longer apply to irregular-hours and part-year workers: they build up leave as they work, under regulation 15B (see the irregular hours calculator). And the 1998 Regulations cover Great Britain only. Northern Ireland has its own Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016, with the same figures: regulation 15 gives 4 weeks and regulation 16 adds 1.6 weeks, capped at 28 days.

"5.6 weeks" and "28 days" are the same thing only for a worker on a standard five-day week — for anyone else, the two figures diverge, which is exactly why so much of this page is about converting one into the other correctly.

How many hours of holiday do I get?

Multiply the hours you work in a normal week by 5.6. On 37.5 hours a week, you get at least 210 hours of paid holiday a year. The table does the sum for common contracts.

Minimum paid holiday a year, by hours you work a week
Hours you work a week	Paid holiday a year, in hours
8	44.8
10	56
12	67.2
15	84
16	89.6
20	112
22.5	126
24	134.4
25	140
30	168
35	196
37	207.2
37.5	210
40	224

We worked these figures out ourselves. GOV.UK and ACAS do not publish them. The 5.6 is the legal minimum: 4 weeks under regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, plus 1.6 weeks under regulation 13A. GOV.UK and ACAS turn it into days by multiplying the days you work each week by 5.6. We do the same with hours. ACAS says a part-timer's leave is "in proportion to the hours they work". Each figure is exact, with no rounding.

The table fits you if all of these are true:

You work 5 days a week or fewer. Statutory holiday is capped at 28 days (regulation 13A(3)). On 6 days a week you get 28 days, so multiply 28 by the hours in your working day. Six 7-hour days (42 hours a week) give 196 hours, not 235.2.
Your hours are regular and you work all year. If your hours vary, or you work only part of the year, your leave may be worked out differently. Use the irregular hours calculator instead.
You know whether your bank holidays come out of these hours. Your employer can count them as part of your statutory leave. Your contract says which.

These are minimums, and your contract can give you more. For your answer in days, or for a part of the year, use the calculator at the top of this page.

The three things that change your answer

Almost every question this site gets boils down to one of three variables. Once you know which one applies to you, you know which calculator to reach for.

How you're paid

A fixed salary makes a week's pay easy to state. Pay that varies — with overtime, commission, or hours worked — does not, and the law has to define a reference period to average it over. In England, Scotland and Wales, the reference period for holiday pay is 52 weeks, not the 12 weeks used for other purposes such as redundancy pay under the Employment Rights Act 1996. The 52-week rule has applied since 6 April 2020, via reg 16 of the WTR, which applies the Employment Rights Act's pay rules to holiday pay with that modification. In Northern Ireland it is still 12 weeks: reg 20 of the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016 uses the 12-week rules in the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996.

How regular your hours are

If your hours are fixed and predictable, the 5.6-week rule applies in the straightforward way this page works through below. If your paid hours vary week to week, or you only work part of the year with unpaid gaps in between, you're in a different statutory category — reforms that took effect from 1 January 2024 created specific rules for "irregular hours" and "part-year" workers, including a different, lawful way to pay rolled-up holiday pay that doesn't exist for anyone else.

When you started or are leaving

The worked example below assumes a full leave year, worked in full. Join partway through a leave year, or leave before it ends, and you only accrue a proportion of the 5.6 weeks — and if your employment is ending, the outstanding balance has to be paid out under a specific statutory formula rather than simply carried forward.

A worked example: the ordinary case

Take the simplest possible case — a worker on a standard five-day week, employed for a full leave year, with no sickness, no mid-year changes, nothing unusual.

Start from the two regulations: 4 weeks (reg 13) + 1.6 weeks (reg 13A) = 5.6 weeks. For a worker whose normal working pattern is 5 days a week, a "week" of leave is worth 5 days of leave, so:

5.6 weeks × 5 days/week = 28 days. That's the whole calculation for a full-time worker — no rounding involved, because 5.6 is exactly 28 ÷ 5.

The same sum pro-rates cleanly for anyone working fewer days. A worker on 3 days a week gets:

5.6 weeks × 3 days/week = 16.8 days.

If that 3-day worker's contract is stated in hours rather than days — say, 6-hour shifts, for 18 hours a week — the days figure converts to hours the same way, by multiplying by the length of a normal working day:

16.8 days × 6 hours/day = 100.8 hours of paid annual leave a year.

Every figure above is shown to the precision it's actually used at, so multiplying the numbers on the page reproduces the result exactly — there's no hidden rounding step between the days figure and the hours figure.

When the ordinary case doesn't fit you

The calculation above only works cleanly because every variable in it is fixed and simple. Change any one of them and you need a different tool, not a variation on the same sum:

Your hours vary week to week, or you only work part of the year — a term-time role, seasonal work, a zero-hours contract — head to the irregular hours calculator, which applies the post-2024 rules rather than a straight days-per-week multiplication.
You're paid a flat percentage on top of your hourly rate instead of taking paid leave — check the rolled-up holiday pay calculator before assuming 12.07% applies to you; it depends on your worker category and which leave year you're in.
You started or left partway through a leave year and need the exact fraction you've accrued rather than the full annual figure — the pro-rata calculator handles the mid-year arithmetic.
Your employment has actually ended and you need to know what's owed in your final pay, including any leave carried over from a previous year — use the termination calculator, which applies the statutory payment-in-lieu formula rather than a simple pro-rata split.
You work rotating shifts where "a week" doesn't map neatly onto five working days — the shift worker calculator compares the different ways of counting a shift pattern against the 5.6-week entitlement.
You're not sure whether bank holidays sit inside or on top of your 28 days — that's entirely down to your contract, and the bank holiday overlap calculator works through both ways employers commonly structure it.
You're pregnant or on maternity leave and want to know how leave keeps accruing while you're away — the maternity calculator maps entitlement across a maternity leave period month by month.
You work for the NHS — Agenda for Change entitlement is set by the NHS Terms and Conditions Handbook, not the WTR minimum, and differs by length of service and by nation. Use the NHS annual leave calculator rather than the sums on this page.

The mistakes employers most often make

A handful of points trip up payroll teams and workers alike, usually because the intuitive assumption is wrong.

Bank holidays are not a statutory right at all. Nothing in the WTR mentions them by name. Whether they're paid, given as time off, or worked as a normal day is entirely a matter of your contract — an employer who says "bank holidays are part of your legal entitlement" is describing a common contractual choice, not a legal requirement. gov.uk
The two tranches of leave carry over under different rules. The 4-week reg 13 portion carries over automatically where sickness, maternity or other statutory family leave prevented it being taken, and where sickness was the cause, it must be used within 18 months of the end of that leave year. It also carries over if your employer didn't give you a reasonable chance to take it, encourage you to, or warn you it would be lost. The 1.6-week reg 13A portion historically only carried over if the contract ("a relevant agreement") allowed it; a narrower automatic right for it was only added, as reg 13A(7A), from 1 January 2024. Treating the two tranches as one pool with one carry-over rule is a common and consequential error — unless you work irregular hours or part of the year. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, regs 13 and 13A don't apply to you: your leave is one pool under reg 15B, and reg 15D sets one set of carry-over rules for all of it. The same automatic routes apply — sickness (used within 18 months), statutory family leave, or an employer who didn't give you a reasonable chance to take it — and they cover whatever you couldn't take, not just 4 weeks. Your contract can also let part of your leave carry over, and the law sets no number of weeks. legislation.gov.uk That exception is in the law for England, Scotland and Wales only. In Northern Ireland the two tranches carry over separately for everyone, whatever their hours: the 4 weeks under reg 15 and the 1.6 weeks under reg 16 of the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016. legislation.gov.uk (Northern Ireland, reg 15) legislation.gov.uk (Northern Ireland, reg 16)
In England, Scotland and Wales, holiday pay uses a 52-week reference period, not 12 weeks. The 12-week averaging period in the Employment Rights Act 1996 is used for other statutory purposes, but reg 16 of the WTR has applied a 52-week reference period to holiday pay since 6 April 2020. Payroll systems in Great Britain still built around the older 12-week figure have been underpaying variable-hours staff for years without anyone noticing. Northern Ireland is the exception: there, holiday pay is still averaged over 12 weeks, under reg 20 of the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016.
12.07% is not a universal shortcut. It applies only in England, Scotland and Wales, only to workers who meet the statutory definition of "irregular hours" or "part-year" under reg 15F, and only for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, under reg 15B. Northern Ireland's Working Time Regulations have no 12.07% rule: irregular-hours and part-year workers there get 5.6 weeks under regs 15 and 16, the same as other workers. For anyone else in Great Britain — and for any earlier leave year — Harpur Trust v Brazel [2022] UKSC 21 still applies: a permanent part-year worker's leave must be worked out using the calendar-week method, not pro-rated down by a flat percentage.
Employers now have to keep holiday records. Since 6 April 2026, employers must keep records of the annual leave you take and the holiday pay you get, and keep them for at least 6 years. If a figure doesn't match your own, you can ask your employer to show you how they worked it out.

Need something specific?

Irregular hours

Calculate holiday pay for irregular shift patterns

Shift workers

Holiday calculations for rotating shift schedules

Termination

Calculate holiday pay owed on leaving employment

Maternity

Holiday accrual during maternity or parental leave

Bank holiday overlap

Check for overlapping bank holidays in your leave

NHS annual leave

Calculate AfC annual leave for NHS Agenda for Change staff

Rolled-up holiday pay

Calculate 12.07% holiday pay for irregular hours and part-year workers

Pro-rata holiday

Work out entitlement when starting or leaving a job mid-year

Frequently asked questions

How do I work out my annual leave?

Multiply the number of days you work each week by 5.6. That gives your statutory minimum in days. For example, if you work 4 days a week: 4 × 5.6 = 22.4 days. On a 5-day week it is 28 days. Statutory leave is capped at 28 days, so someone who works 6 days a week also gets 28. Your contract can give you more than this. If you started or are leaving part-way through your leave year, you get a share of the yearly figure: use the pro-rata calculator. If your hours vary, or you work only part of the year, your leave builds up from the hours you work: use the irregular hours calculator.

How do I convert annual leave days to hours?

Divide your contracted weekly hours by the number of days you work each week to get the length of your average day, then multiply by your entitlement in days. For example, 37.5 hrs ÷ 5 days = 7.5 hrs/day × 28 days = 210 hours. That is the same as 5.6 weeks of 37.5 hours.

Are bank holidays included in my 28 days?

It depends on your employer. Model A (top-up) adds bank holidays on top of your 28 days (e.g. 28 + 8 = 36 days). Model B (inclusive) means bank holidays come out of your 28 days, leaving you fewer days to book freely. Check your employment contract or see GOV.UK.

How is pro-rata holiday calculated in the UK?

Pro-rata holiday is calculated using calendar days. Divide the number of days employed in the leave year by the total days in the leave year, then multiply by your full entitlement. Employers can never round the result down. Per ACAS guidance, rounding up to the nearest half day is mandatory during your first year of employment; after that it's optional, and some employers track the exact decimal figure instead.

What is bank holiday Model A vs Model B?

Model A (top-up): bank holidays are given in addition to your annual leave. For example, 25 days leave + 8 bank holidays = 33 days total. Model B (inclusive): bank holidays count as part of your annual leave. For example, 25 days total of which 8 are bank holidays, leaving 17 days to book freely.

What happens to bank holidays that fall on my non-working day?

If a bank holiday falls on a day you do not normally work, there is no automatic right to a day in lieu. Your employer cannot require you to use that day as part of your holiday entitlement, but whether you get any alternative time off depends on your contract. Check your contract or ask HR to see whether bank holidays are included in your leave or given on top.

How is holiday entitlement calculated for part-time workers?

Part-time workers get the same statutory minimum as full-time workers, pro-rated to their hours. The legal minimum is 5.6 weeks' leave per year. If you work 3 days a week instead of 5, you receive 5.6 × 3 = 16.8 days. The 28-day cap only affects people working more than 5 days a week, so it never reduces a part-timer's figure. Bank holidays are not automatically pro-rated: an employer may include them in your allowance, give them on top, or count only those falling on your working days. Check your contract or ask HR.

What happens to unused holiday when I leave a job?

Any statutory holiday you have accrued but not taken by the time your employment ends must be paid out in your final pay packet — this is called payment in lieu of accrued holiday. Your employer cannot simply withhold it. You get a week's pay for each week of leave you have not taken. If you get the same pay for your normal hours every week, that is your normal week's pay under your contract — not an average, so a recent pay rise counts in full. If your pay varies from week to week, it is your average over the last 52 weeks in which you were paid (or the complete weeks you have worked, if fewer than 52) in England, Scotland and Wales. In Northern Ireland the average is taken over 12 weeks. If you have taken more holiday than you have accrued, your employer may deduct the overage from your final pay if your contract allows it.

Can I carry over unused annual leave?

It depends why you didn't take it. Normally your statutory 5.6 weeks (28 days for a 5-day week) must be used in the leave year it's due, or it's lost. If your contract allows it, up to 1.6 weeks (8 days for a 5-day week) of that can carry over. If you work irregular hours or part of the year, your contract can let part of your leave carry over, and the law sets no number of weeks. If long-term sickness stopped you taking leave, you can carry over up to 4 weeks (all of it if you work irregular hours or part of the year), but it must be used within 18 months of the end of that leave year. If maternity or other statutory family leave stopped you taking leave, your employer must let it carry over automatically — this doesn't need their agreement. And if your employer didn't give you a reasonable chance to take your leave, encourage you to, or warn you it would be lost, you can also carry over up to 4 weeks (again, all of it if you work irregular hours or part of the year). In Northern Ireland there are no separate rules for irregular hours or part of the year: there, a contract can let up to 1.6 weeks carry over, and sickness or your employer's failure lets up to 4 weeks carry over, whatever your hours. Any contractual leave above the 28-day statutory minimum follows whatever your contract says.

How much holiday do I accrue during my notice period?

If you work regular hours all year round, you keep building up statutory annual leave throughout your notice period, whether you are working it or on garden leave, because you are still employed. The leave you have earned by your last day is the same share of your yearly leave as the share of your leave year that has passed. In England, Scotland and Wales, for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, if you work irregular hours or only part of the year, you build up leave on the hours you actually work. That rule also gives you leave during sick leave and statutory leave, such as maternity leave. Acas says you are not working during garden leave, so the statutory minimum does not add leave for garden leave itself. Your contract may give more; ask your employer. If you have unused leave when you leave, it must be paid out. If your employer wants you to use up leave during your notice period, the default rule is that they must tell you at least twice as many days in advance as the number of days they want you to take, plus 1 day (so at least 11 days' notice to take 5 days' leave). Your contract, or a workforce or collective agreement, can change this rule or remove it, so check it first.

View all UK annual leave calculators →