Quick answer: Most UK workers are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year (28 days for a five-day week) under the Working Time Regulations 1998. Your entitlement resets at the start of your “leave year”, set by your contract. Holiday pay should reflect your normal earnings, not just basic pay. Our employment lawyers can help.
Annual leave resets at the start of your leave year. There is no single fixed UK-wide date. Most employers set a fixed leave year that applies to everyone, such as 1 January to 31 December, 1 April to 31 March (the tax year), or 1 September to 31 August (common in education). Your leave year should be set out in your contract of employment, your offer letter, or your written statement of particulars.
If your contract does not set a leave year, the Working Time Regulations 1998 set a default. The default leave year starts on:
the date you started work, if your employment began after 1 October 1998; or
1 October, if you began work on or before that date.
In other words, when a holiday reset depends entirely on what your contract says, and if it says nothing, on the regulatory default. If you are unsure, ask HR for confirmation in writing.
Holiday pay itself does not “reset”. You earn the right to be paid for the holiday you have taken in any given pay period. What resets at the start of a new leave year is your entitlement: the running total of how many days of paid holiday you have available to take. At the start of each new leave year, that balance refills to your full annual entitlement (subject to any agreed carry-over from the previous year).
So if you are searching for “when does holiday pay reset”, what you usually mean is “when does my paid holiday entitlement reset”, and the answer is at the start of your leave year.
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, almost every worker and employee in the UK is entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday in each leave year. For a worker on a five-day week, that adds up to 28 days a year, including bank holidays if the employer chooses to include them. The 5.6 weeks is split into two parts:
The 28-day figure is a statutory minimum. Many employers offer more, and a few offer less than they should. If you work part-time, your entitlement is pro-rated, but you still get 5.6 weeks in proportion to your working pattern.
Your written statement of particulars must include the details of your holiday entitlement and holiday pay. If you cannot find them, that is itself a red flag.
The right to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday applies to most “workers”, not only to employees with a permanent contract. That means agency workers, casual staff and people on zero-hours arrangements are usually entitled to it too. Genuinely self-employed contractors running their own business are not, but the line is not always where your contract says it is. The courts have repeatedly found that people labelled “self-employed” by the businesses they work for are actually workers in law, with full holiday rights, including in the Uber and Pimlico Plumbers cases. If you are unsure where you sit, our employment law team can help you work it out.
Your core holiday rights in the workplace are:
Your employer can refuse a specific holiday request, but only by giving you notice equal to the length of the leave being refused, and they cannot deny you the ability to take your full statutory holiday in the year as a whole.
There is no separate statutory right to be given bank holidays as paid leave in the UK. Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid time off, and your employer can include them within your 5.6 weeks of statutory leave or treat them as extra leave on top. Many employers express it as “20 days plus bank holidays”, which is 28 days in total, in line with the statutory minimum.
If you work irregular hours or shifts (for example, retail or healthcare), your contract may say that bank holidays are part of your 5.6 weeks, and that you are expected to work them in the normal way and receive equivalent paid time off at another time. That is lawful, provided the total still meets the statutory minimum.
If you work part-time, you are entitled to a pro-rated share of the same 5.6 weeks of paid holiday, in proportion to your working pattern. A four-day worker, for example, is entitled to 4 × 5.6 = 22.4 days a year. If you work three shifts a week, you would be entitled to 16.8 days. Part-time workers cannot lawfully be treated less favourably than full-time staff on holiday.
For irregular hours workers and “part-year” workers (workers who only work for part of the year, such as term-time-only staff), the position changed from 1 April 2024. For leave years beginning on or after that date, statutory leave accrues at 12.07% of hours worked in each pay period, and an employer can choose to use rolled-up holiday pay (paid as a clearly identifiable uplift on each pay slip), reversing the long-standing rule from Harpur Trust v Brazel. The 2024 rules apply only to workers who fall within the statutory definitions of “irregular hours worker” or “part-year worker”; the 52-week reference period method continues to apply to other variable-hours workers. If you are an irregular hours or part-year worker, check your payslip carefully and ask for clarification if you are not sure what is happening.
The general rule is that statutory holiday is “use it or lose it” within the leave year. You cannot stockpile it indefinitely. However, there are important exceptions where holiday must be carried over:
if you have been unable to take holiday because of sickness absence, you can carry the unused 4 weeks of regulation 13 leave forward for up to 18 months from the end of the leave year in which it accrued
if you have been on maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental or other family leave, untaken statutory leave generally carries over — and following the January 2024 amendments, this carry-over covers the full 5.6 weeks, not just the 4-week regulation 13 element
if your employer has prevented you from taking your statutory holiday (for example, by refusing all your requests), or has failed to inform you that you could lose the leave at the end of the year, the leave can carry over until you have a reasonable opportunity to take it
Anything above the 5.6-week statutory minimum (so-called “contractual” leave) can be carried over only if your contract or your employer’s policy allows it.
Employers have a positive duty to give you a genuine opportunity to take your statutory leave and to warn you, in good time, that you will lose it if you do not. If they have not done that, you are unlikely to lose the leave at the end of the year.
Holiday pay should reflect a “week’s pay” calculated on the basis of your normal earnings, not just your basic wage. Following a long line of cases — including Williams v British Airways and Lock v British Gas on intrinsically linked elements of pay, Bear Scotland v Fulton on non-guaranteed overtime, and Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council v Willetts on regular voluntary overtime — regularly received elements of pay should be included in holiday pay, such as:
Important — time limits apply: A claim for unpaid holiday pay must usually be brought in the employment tribunal within three months less one day of the underpayment, and you must notify ACAS first under the early conciliation process. From 1 December 2025, the ACAS Early Conciliation period was extended to a maximum of 12 weeks. The clock is tight, so take advice as soon as you suspect a problem.
If your employer pays only basic pay during holiday, the shortfall is normally treated as an unlawful deduction from wages. Where there has been a series of underpayments, you may be able to claim for the series rather than just the most recent payment. A two-year backstop has generally applied to how far back holiday-pay claims can reach under the Deduction from Wages (Limitation) Regulations 2014, although recent tribunal decisions have complicated the position for some cases.
How far back your specific claim can go, and whether a chain of underpayments still counts as a continuous “series” or has been broken by gaps between deductions, has been the subject of significant legal development in recent years. The position that applies to you depends on factors including when the underpayments occurred, the pattern and frequency of pay periods affected, and the wider state of the case law at the time you bring your claim. An early conversation with our specialist employment lawyers is the right way to understand the time limits and recovery scope that apply to your circumstances.
When your employment ends, your employer must pay you for any accrued but untaken statutory holiday. Pro-rata calculations apply for the part of the leave year up to your last day. If you have taken more holiday than you have accrued by the time you leave, your employer can usually only reclaim the excess if your contract clearly allows it.
Both sides can also use the notice period to clear down accrued leave. You can ask to take some or all of your remaining holiday before your last day, by agreement or by giving the statutory notice. Your employer can also require you to take holiday during your notice period, provided they give you notice equal to twice the length of the leave.
You generally cannot be paid in lieu of statutory holiday during employment. The payment-in-lieu rule applies only to accrued but untaken leave at termination.
If your employer is getting holiday entitlement, holiday pay or carry-over wrong, please get in touch. Our specialist employment lawyers at Lawson West offer a free, confidential first conversation, and we will tell you honestly whether we think you have a claim worth pursuing. With offices in Leicester and Market Harborough, and clients right across the UK, we are a national provider of expert employment law advice and we’re here to help.
Call us on 0116 212 1000 or 01858 445 480, or complete our free online Contact Us form and we will be in touch as soon as possible. Please remember, there are strict time limits in employment claims, so don’t wait too long. We’re here to help.
Yes, but they must do so reasonably, consult you, and make sure that the change does not reduce your statutory entitlement. A unilateral change that strips you of accrued leave can amount to breach of contract and unlawful deduction from wages.
Yes, within limits. Your employer can require you to take holiday at specific times (such as a Christmas shutdown), provided they give you notice equal to twice the length of the leave. They can also refuse a specific holiday request with similar notice. They cannot stop you from taking your statutory holiday in the year as a whole.
If you fall ill before or during pre-booked holiday, you can usually choose to take the time as sickness absence instead and reclaim the holiday for another time, subject to your employer’s sickness reporting procedures. This is one of the most commonly overlooked rights.
Yes. Your statutory holiday continues to accrue throughout periods of sickness absence and during statutory family leave such as maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave. If you cannot take that leave before the end of the leave year, the carry-over rules above will usually apply.
You may be able to take all or part of your accrued leave during your notice period, by agreement or by giving the right notice under the Working Time Regulations. Any accrued but untaken statutory holiday at the date your employment ends must be paid out by your employer.
Not during employment for statutory holiday. Statutory holiday is a health and safety entitlement and must generally be taken as time off. Payment in lieu is only allowed at the end of employment for accrued but untaken statutory leave. Contractual leave above the statutory minimum can sometimes be “bought back” if your contract allows.
Generally no. Where an employer has prevented a worker from taking statutory holiday, or has failed to tell them they would lose it, the leave carries over until the worker has a reasonable opportunity to take it. This principle was developed in EU case law — notably King v The Sash Window Workshop (CJEU, C-214/16) and Max-Planck-Gesellschaft v Shimizu (CJEU, C-684/16) — and is now reflected in the UK regulations as amended from January 2024, reinforced by the UK courts in the Smith v Pimlico Plumbers line of cases.
Yes. The right to 5.6 weeks paid holiday applies to most workers, not just employees. Self-employed contractors who genuinely run their own businesses are usually not covered, but the courts have repeatedly found that people described as “self-employed” by their employer are actually workers in law, including in the Uber and Pimlico Plumbers cases.
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