Bank holidays
Bank holidays, pay and annual leave
Enter the days you work a week: the statutory leave you are owed, and how the bank holidays of your nation fit in it.
Statutory annual leave and bank holidays
Statutory leave
28 days
| 5.6 weeks × days a week, capped at 28 | 28 days |
| Bank holidays, England and Wales 2027 | 8 |
| Left to choose if all are taken as leave | 20 days |
Bank holidays can count towards the statutory minimum; your contract may give them on top.
There is no legal right to have bank holidays off, or to be paid more for working on one. What the law gives is paid annual leave: 5.6 weeks a year under the Working Time Regulations 1998, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week, the legal maximum. An employer may include bank holidays in those 28 days, which leaves twenty days to book in England and Wales, or give them on top. Whether they are paid, whether you must work them and whether you get extra pay depends on your contract. Part-time workers are entitled to 5.6 times their working week, and get the same proportion of bank holidays as full-time staff, not just the ones that happen to fall on their working days. For people with irregular hours or part-year contracts, leave years starting from April 2024 accrue holiday at 12.07% of hours worked. GOV.UK's holiday entitlement calculator gives the official figure for any pattern.
Bank holidays in a year, by nation
Bank holidays
8
| On a Monday | 5 |
| On a Friday | 2 |
| Long weekends | 7 |
| Substitute days | 2 |
England and Wales, 2027, as published by GOV.UK.
Rules and dates checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
Statutory leave by working week
| Days worked a week | Statutory leave (days) | If all E&W bank holidays are included | Left to book |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 28 | 8 | 20 |
| 4 | 22.4 | 6.4 | 16 |
| 3 | 16.8 | 4.8 | 12 |
| 2 | 11.2 | 3.2 | 8 |
| 1 | 5.6 | 1.6 | 4 |
The simulator above does the same for six or seven days a week, for each nation and year, so that a business with staff in Scotland or Northern Ireland can see the difference.
Where the rules are
The entitlement comes from the Working Time Regulations 1998: four weeks under regulation 13 and an extra 1.6 weeks under regulation 13A, added in 2007 and 2009 precisely so that workers would not lose out when bank holidays were counted as leave. GOV.UK summarises the rules, and its holiday entitlement calculator works out the figure for shifts, irregular hours and people who start or leave part-way through the year. The bank holidays themselves come from the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, which is about banks and payments, not employment: that is why it gives no right to time off.
Pay for the day
When a bank holiday is taken as paid leave, the pay should be your normal pay. For people whose pay varies, normal pay includes regular overtime, commission and some allowances, averaged over a reference period of 52 weeks. Employers cannot replace statutory leave with a payment except when the job ends, when untaken leave must be paid. Agency workers have the same entitlement, calculated on the hours they work.
Common situations
A bank holiday falls during your holiday: if bank holidays are part of your leave, the day counts as a bank holiday, not as one of your booked days. Shift workers whose rest day falls on a bank holiday: what you get depends on your contract, but the total of 5.6 weeks must still be reached. A substitute day, such as Monday 28 December 2026, counts exactly like the original holiday. The bank holidays 2027 page lists the days in each nation, and the working days calculator counts the working days in any period. For a dispute, Acas gives free advice on holiday rights.
A worker who is off sick on a bank holiday is treated according to the contract and the sick pay rules, and statutory leave that cannot be taken because of sickness can be carried over. A worker on maternity, paternity or shared parental leave continues to build up statutory annual leave, including the bank holidays the employer counts in it, during the leave.
Checking your own entitlement
Start with the number of days you work a week, multiply by 5.6 and cap the result at 28: that is your statutory minimum, including any bank holidays your employer counts. Then read your contract to see whether bank holidays are included in your total or given on top, and whether working one earns extra pay or a day in lieu. The simulator above does the first step for you, with the bank holidays of your nation and year, so that you can see how many days are left to book.