United Kingdom annual leave entitlement

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What the law actually says

Workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week. Uniquely, an employer may count public holidays towards that 28 days, so the practical entitlement varies by contract. Part-time workers get 5.6 weeks of their own working pattern, pro rata.

What happens to unused leave in United Kingdom

Statutory leave in United Kingdom is expected to be taken in the year it accrues, with limited carryover into the following period. The important protection is that leave an employee was genuinely prevented from taking — through sickness or parental leave, for example — is protected by settled case law and does not simply disappear.

When employment ends, the untaken balance must be paid. This is the rule across the European Union and Australia, and it is the sharpest contrast with the United States, where whether unused time is paid out depends entirely on which state the employee works in.

If you run a team in United Kingdom

• Write the entitlement into every contract. At least 28 days; more is fine, less is void. Collective agreements may add to it.
• Track accrual and carryover to the day, with a record of every approval. When someone leaves, the untaken balance is money you owe, and you will need to show how you got to the number.
• Budget for the payout. Every unused day on the books is a liability at that person's current pay rate — it does not disappear at year end.

If you work in United Kingdom

• Check your contract gives at least 28 days. Anything less is unenforceable.
• Keep your own record of approved leave. Payroll systems get changed; your notes don't.
• When you leave, untaken statutory leave must be paid out. It cannot be forfeited.

Calculating an employee's balance

Entitlement is the starting point; the working number is what an individual has actually accrued at a given date. Our accrual calculator converts an annual entitlement into a per-pay-period figure and a current balance.

Tracking United Kingdom leave correctly

Because untaken leave is money the employer owes, the balance has to be provable. Spreadsheets fail at exactly the moment they matter — when someone disputes what they were owed on their last day and nobody can reconstruct the record.

For a single-country team, Leavo handles United Kingdom accrual rules, carryover and approvals with a full audit trail. If you employ people in more than one country, statutory entitlements, carryover rules and payout obligations differ in every one — that is the case for a platform like Deel that handles multi-country employment rather than leave alone. We compare the options in our leave management software guide.

Source

Primary source: Working Time Regulations 1998. Statutory minimums change, and collective agreements frequently exceed them — confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.