Holiday entitlement 2026

[sparklestar4]

Hello,

I received my Holiday entitlement today and I'm questioning whether it's correct.

I work part time over 4 days (Monday - Thursday). Full time employee holiday entitlement is 26 days plus 8 days bank holiday.

Christmas is automatically subtracted from my entitlement which will be 4 days (24th, 29th, 30th and 31st December)

My holiday runs from January - December.

My 2026 holiday entitlement I received from HR today is 17 days. This seems lower than usual.

I wondered if anyone could check this for me or know of any websites that can do this for me.

Thanks in advance!

21 days sounds right.

@Yoheresthestory That's what I worked out too however, I wanted to see if anyone else came to 17 days.

So they get 34 days?
⅘ of that is 27.2 days
Deduct any bank holidays and closures;
6 bank holidays fall on your working days (including 28th December) leaving 21.2 days
Deduct the 4 dates you've mentioned as they arent included in the actual bank holiday dates leaves you with 17.2 days

17 days is right if they have deducted the bank holidays.

You have a 0.8 contract, but each time you are off on a bank holiday you're taking a whole day. So your non bank holiday leave has to make up the remaining 20% of your day.

@dementedpixie Thanks for that. If its 17.2days, should this be rounded up to 18?

Depends on your hours - do you work full hours the 4 days you work?
If so I make it 17 after you take off the 4 days for Christmas.
0.8 (for 4 out of 5 day) is 20.8 (rounded to 21 usually).
21 minus 4 is 17.

I removed bank holidays from the calculation. My work give them to you if it is your working day, not if it isn't a working day for you.

No!

https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement

Try the above calculator. I use it for my part-time staff 😀

You are not allowed to round down so they either have to give you the extra .2 days in hours or they can round up to 17.5 or 18.

They arent supposed to round down so they should give some sort of extra; could be equivalent of 0.2 of a day or round up to ½ a day

Your leave should be in hours shouldnt it? I thought all part time staff were done in hours to make it more accurate.

Not usually! We would usually round it up to 17.5, but some employers might just give you the 0.2.

I work in payroll & get the exact same calculations as DementedPixie

If she works set hours on set days there isn't usually a need to work it out in hours. It makes more sense if different hours are worked on different days.

As above.

our part timers are worked out in days, not hours as they work the same number of hours each day.

All my leave is in hours too

Ah thanks, I’m part time and mine is in hours but I work 3 full days and a half day. My workplace changed every one including full timers to hours but I’d been given my leave in hours for years before hand and thought it was a universal thing.

No, it should be rounded up to 17.5.

What are your working days?
In places I've worked, if you're part time they give you the bank holidays on top of your AL (so 6.4 days for a 0.8 week - mine did it in hours though) and you'd have to book off any bank holidays that fell on a working day with your annual leave. Mondays were always a good day to be your non working day for this reason.

Your employer may be deducting your bank holidays for you, which could leave you with 17 depending on what days/hours you usually work.

4/5 of 26 is 20.8, rounded up to 21 less 4 for the Christmas days is 17. It seems right to me.

Yes, that’s how I calculate mine and then convert to working days if staff want both.

@sparklestar4 I posted this yesterday on another thread.

They’re not allowed to round down - employers have to tread very carefully with part timers to make sure they are treated fairly, perhaps even more favourably than full timers if necessary (it’s the law).

OP, this is the reason I don’t work Mondays - they take the days back from you. I work Tues-Thurs and get 22 days on average each year.

But that doesn’t mean they have to round it up.