A leave tracker for the statutory minimum, not for your spreadsheet's guess

5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. gov.uk states that "almost all people classed as workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year" and that most workers on a five day week must receive at least 28 days. The entitlement is capped: "statutory paid holiday entitlement is limited to 28 days", so working six or seven days a week does not produce more statutory leave than working five. Anything above that floor is contractual, not statutory.

Multiply the days worked in a normal week by 5.6. Acas gives the worked example: someone working three days a week gets 16.8 days of paid holiday a year (3 x 5.6). Pro-rate the statutory entitlement first and handle bank holidays afterwards. Pro-rating a figure that already had bank holidays deducted from it produces 12 days for a three day week instead of 16.8, which is below the statutory floor and is the most common error in this calculation.

That is a contract question, not a statutory one. gov.uk states that "bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave" and that an employer "can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker's statutory annual leave". For a five day week, counting eight bank holidays inside the entitlement leaves 20 days to choose freely; giving them on top leaves 28. Both are lawful, and the written statement of employment particulars should say which applies.

At 12.07% of the hours actually worked in each pay period, for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. gov.uk defines an irregular hours worker as one whose paid hours in each pay period are, under the contract, wholly or mostly variable, and a part-year worker as one required to work only part of the year with unpaid gaps of at least a week. The 12.07% is 5.6 weeks divided by the 46.4 working weeks of a year, and entitlement for this group is measured in hours rather than days.

Normally a maximum of 8 days, and only with the employer's agreement. It is a ceiling on what may be carried rather than a right to carry it. Family leave is the exception: where a worker could not take their holiday because they were on maternity or other family related leave, the employer must allow all of the entitlement to be carried into the following leave year. Long-term sickness is treated differently again and should be checked case by case rather than against the eight day rule.

Against the statutory floor, yes, and it usually means the contract is more generous than the minimum rather than that something has gone wrong. This tracker computes the legal minimum, so a worker with a contractual 33 days who has taken 30 will show as negative against a 28 day statutory entitlement. The floor is what the law guarantees; the contract is what the worker is owed, and the contract can only be better.

No, and if a part-time calculation has used the cap the calculation is wrong. The cap only engages above a five day week: five days times 5.6 is exactly 28, so anybody working five days or fewer is unaffected by it. A six day week is the first pattern where the ceiling bites, cutting 33.6 days down to 28.