Pro rata holiday calculator

Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, capped at 28 days. Pro rata holiday means scaling that to the hours you work and the part of the leave year you work. First find your full-year entitlement: 5.6 times the days you work each week, or 5.6 times your weekly hours. Then, if you start or leave part way through the leave year, multiply it by the days you are employed in the leave year and divide by the days in the leave year.

Part-time workers who work regular hours for the whole year are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks of paid holiday, which amounts to fewer than 28 days. If you work 3 days a week, you get at least 16.8 days (3 x 5.6), and 4 days a week gives 22.4 days. If your days are different lengths, count in hours: 20 hours a week over 4 days gives 5.6 x 20 = 112 hours, which is 22.4 days of 5 hours. The cap of 28 days applies to your average working day, so a 6-day week still gives 28 days.

If you start a job part way through a leave year, you are only entitled to part of your annual leave for that year, depending on how much of the year is left. If you start part way through a month, you can accrue one-twelfth of your leave from your first day. For example, with 28 days a year and a leave year starting on 1 January, a worker who starts on 13 January is entitled to 2.5 days for January (28 / 12 = 2.33, rounded up to the nearest half day). Your employer can instead calculate the first month pro rata for the days worked. This calculator uses the pro rata method for the whole leave year: starting on 13/01/2026 means 353 of 365 days employed, so 28 x 353 / 365 = 27.08 days, or 27.5 days rounded up to the nearest half day.

For regular-hours workers, an employer can use an accrual system in the first year, giving one-twelfth of the leave in each month. After the third month on 28 days a year, that is 7 days.

When you leave, you are entitled to the holiday you have built up in the leave year so far. Your employer must pay you for statutory holiday you have not taken, even if you are dismissed for gross misconduct, using your contract's formula or the one in regulation 14 of the Working Time Regulations 1998. If you have taken more than you built up, your employer must not take money from your final pay unless this was agreed in writing beforehand.

If you move from one working pattern to another part way through a leave year, for example from 5 days a week to 3, this calculator works out each period pro rata and adds the two together. The gov.uk guidance does not give a separate formula for this, so your contract may set its own method. Rounding is applied once, to the total.

There is no legal right to paid time off on bank holidays. Your employer can include them in your 5.6 weeks, and your contract says whether they do. England and Wales usually have 8 bank holidays a year, Scotland 9 and Northern Ireland 10. If bank holidays are included, this calculator counts them pro rata to your working week and to the time you are employed, and shows how much holiday is left to book. The real split depends on which bank holidays fall on your working days.

The law does not require an employer to round a pro rata annual entitlement. Many employers round up to the nearest half day or whole day, which is allowed because it gives more than the minimum. Rounding down is not allowed, because it leaves you with less than your statutory entitlement. Irregular hours and part-year workers are different: the law rounds the holiday built up in each pay period to the nearest whole hour, so less than 30 minutes counts as zero and 30 minutes or more counts as a full hour. See the UK holiday entitlement calculator for the 12.07% method.