# Holiday Entitlement Calculator 2026 — UK Statutory Leave

Source page: https://valem.run/calculators/uk/holiday-entitlement

Almost every UK worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which is 28 days on a five-day week and 16.8 on a three-day week, capped at 28 days however many days a week you work.

**Tax year:** 2026

## How it is calculated

The entitlement is expressed in **weeks**, not days, and that single fact resolves most of the confusion around it. GOV.UK: *"Almost all people classed as workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year."* Multiply by your own working week and you have your figure in days — GOV.UK gives the worked example itself: *"if they work 3 days a week, they must get at least 16.8 days’ leave a year (3 × 5.6)."* This page uses that example as one of its self-tests, so the arithmetic is checked against the authority rather than against our own reading of it.

There is then a ceiling: *"Statutory paid holiday entitlement is limited to 28 days."* So a six-day week does **not** give 33.6 days. This is the one place a naive 5.6 × days-per-week calculator overstates the law, and it overstates it for exactly the workers least likely to be told otherwise.

**Bank holidays are the real trap, and it runs the other way.** GOV.UK is explicit 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."* So "28 days including bank holidays" and "28 days plus bank holidays" are different offers, and only the second exceeds the minimum. The 28 here is the whole legal entitlement, whichever way your employer counts them.

## Worked example

With Days you work per week of 3, this model computes Days Entitled of 16.80.

## Inputs

| Name | Label | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `leaveYearStart` | Leave year starts (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `leaveYearEnd` | Leave year ends (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `workStart` | First day worked in it (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `workEnd` | Last day worked in it (YYYY-MM-DD) | string |
| `daysPerWeek` | Days you work per week | number |
| `daysTaken` | Days already taken | number |

## Sources

- [GOV.UK — Holiday entitlement (5.6 weeks; the 28-day limit; bank holidays)](https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights) (checked 2026-10-09)

## What this page claims

The Valem engine reproduces this model's formula through 7 self-test cases. That shows internal consistency, not that the formula matches current law; the cited sources are the evidence for that. Estimate, not tax advice.

## For agents

- Model manifest (formula, constants, test vectors): https://valem.run/calculators/uk/holiday-entitlement.json
- Compute by URL: https://valem.run/calculators/uk/holiday-entitlement.json
- MCP: https://valem.run/mcp/calculators (call `calculate` with calculator `uk/holiday-entitlement`)