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How much holiday am I entitled to?

Your holiday entitlement, what's left and why HR's figure may differ. Free; nothing leaves your browser.

Covers regular hours in England, Scotland and Wales. Different for you?

Your leave year
Did you start or leave during it?
Your working week
Your holiday is counted in

Your holiday entitlement for these dates

This calculator needs JavaScript. With the example answers, started 1 April with a leave year from 1 January and 3 days a week, the legal minimum is 13 days: 16.8 x 9 / 12 = 12.6, rounded up to the half day.

This shows what the rules and your figures add up to. It isn't legal advice, and your contract may set things out differently.

How the holiday entitlement calculator works

Start with your week. The legal minimum for a full leave year is 5.6 weeks, so you multiply 5.6 by the days you work: 16.8 days for three days a week, 28 for five. There's a ceiling. Nobody's legal minimum goes above 28 days, so six or seven days a week still gets 28.

If the year isn't all yours, the calculator takes a share of it, the same way the GOV.UK holiday entitlement calculator does. If you started part way through, the months left count, and the month you started in counts in full; the figure is then rounded up to the half day. If you're leaving, it counts the days up to and including your last one, and if you started and are leaving in the same year, the days between the two. For the legal minimum, that makes our first figure the one GOV.UK gives, rounding included.

Count in hours and the same sums run in hours. If your pattern changed during the year, each part earns at its own pattern. Entered days off use the average hours a day for that pattern; if your days differ in length, choose Hours for time off and enter the actual hours. That's the sum you'd otherwise be doing by hand, on the back of a payslip.

Then open "Work out what's left". Your contract figure sits next to the legal minimum, and we use whichever is higher and tell you which. Carried-over days go on, days taken and booked come off, and a "built up by" figure shows what you'd have if you left on a given date. That one stays on its own line and never gets added to the total.

If your employer's figure is different, the calculator tests one assumption at a time: bank holidays counted the other way, booked leave left in, carry-over left out, built-up shown instead of the year, rounding, your old or new pattern for the whole year, the other basis, the other way of counting a part year. It tells you which ones land on their number, each worded as a question you can ask without accusing anyone. It doesn't tell you who's right.

Shaded: the part of the leave year that counts.

Started 1 April: 9 of 12 months count. 16.8 x 9 / 12 = 12.6, rounded up to 13 days.

Who this is for

  • You've got a holiday figure from HR, a payslip or a leaving letter and want to see where it comes from.
  • You started this leave year, you're leaving, or both, so only part of the year is yours.
  • You went part-time or changed your hours, and the balance stopped making sense.
  • You run a small team, or do HR alongside your own job, and need the same sum for a starter or a leaver.

It covers regular hours in England, Scotland and Wales. If your hours vary from week to week, or your contract has unpaid weeks off through the year, or you work in Northern Ireland, the buttons at the top say where to go instead. Some jobs sit under separate rules too, such as work at sea or on inland waterways and some civil aviation crews, while farm workers in Wales and Scotland have their own leave-year rules. We checked those exceptions in the Working Time Regulations 1998 on 8 October 2026. If one might be you, ask your employer which rules they apply before you rely on the figure.

Worker questions about holiday entitlement

How much holiday am I entitled to working 3 days a week?

At least 16.8 days a year. The legal minimum is 5.6 weeks, and three days times 5.6 is 16.8. Your contract can give more, never less. If you started or are leaving part way through the leave year, you get a share of that, and the calculator above works the share out from your dates.

Does 28 days holiday include bank holidays?

It can. There's no legal right to have bank holidays off on top of your 5.6 weeks, and GOV.UK says an employer can count them as part of it. So "28 days including bank holidays" meets the minimum for a five-day week. Other contracts give them on top instead. Your contract says which, and the bank holiday buttons in "Work out what's left" let you set it.

How much holiday am I entitled to if I leave my job?

Your share of the leave year up to and including your last day, less what you've taken. Choose "I'm leaving" above and the calculator counts it in days, as GOV.UK does. Untaken statutory holiday is paid in your final pay. If you've taken more than you'd built up, GOV.UK says your employer can't take money back unless you agreed to it in writing beforehand.

How much holiday have I accrued so far?

Open "Work out what's left" and set the "Built up by" date. You'll see what you'd have if your last day were that date, on its own line. In your first year there's a separate rule: holiday builds up a twelfth at a time, on the first day of each month of the job, rounded up to the half day. If that's how your employer counts, the comparison checks for it.

What happens to my holiday entitlement when my hours change?

Open "My hours or days changed this leave year" and add the date and your new pattern. The calculator splits the year there and works out each part at its own days or hours. Days off use each pattern's average day length. If your days differ in length, enter the actual hours off. Employers don't all do it this way, so if their figure differs, the comparison checks whether they used one pattern for the whole year.

Is holiday entitlement rounded up or down?

Up, if at all. Acas is clear that employers can't round part days down. In the first year of a job, part days must be rounded up to the nearest half day; after that, rounding up is the employer's choice. The GOV.UK calculator rounds a starter's figure up to the half day and shows other figures rounded up to one decimal place. We do the same.

Can I carry over my holiday entitlement?

Your contract decides most of it. GOV.UK says that if you get 28 days, you can carry over up to 8 of them where your contract allows. There are wider rules if you couldn't take leave because of sickness or family leave. We don't work out what you can carry over. The calculator just adds whatever your employer has confirmed.

Do part-time workers get bank holidays?

Not as a separate right. Part-time workers get 5.6 times their own week, and bank holidays can count towards that, just as they can for full-timers. Where full-time staff get more than the legal minimum, Acas says part-timers must get more than the minimum too. If you don't work Mondays, ask how your share of bank holidays is worked out.

How to calculate holiday entitlement

Here's the sum the calculator does, so you can check it on paper.

  1. Days a week x 5.6, up to 28. Three days: 16.8.
  2. If you started part way through, count the months left in the leave year, including the month you started, divide by 12 and round up to the half day. Started 1 April, leave year from 1 January: 16.8 x 9 / 12 = 12.6, so 13 days.
  3. If you're leaving, count the days from the start of the leave year to your last day, both included, divide by the days in the year and multiply the full-year figure by that.
  4. In hours, multiply by your hours a day: 13 days at 7.5 hours is 97.5 hours.
  5. Add anything carried over and take off what you've taken and booked.

Say that starter has taken 3 days. 13 less 3 leaves 10 days to book. If HR says 7, they may be counting what's built up so far, a twelfth a month, rather than the whole year. A difference like that is worth one polite question to payroll.

Sources and last checked

Rules last checked 8 October 2026 (version gb-holiday-rules 2026-10-07).

Here we had to pick one reading over another. If you start and leave in the same leave year, the GOV.UK calculator divides by the days in the 12 months from your first day, and so do we. GOV.UK's detailed guidance on calculating holiday entitlement uses your contract's leave year instead, where one is set. The two only differ when just one of those years includes 29 February, and then by a fraction of a day. We checked both on 8 October 2026.

More free tools

Worth a bookmark if you're leaving a job this year, or if HR's figure ever stops adding up.

Still can't make the numbers agree after talking to payroll? Our directory lists employment solicitors near you.

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