Bank holiday entitlement and pay explained: A simple guide

We all look forward to bank holidays as those bonus days in the calendar that make the weekend a little longer and give people a chance to recharge.

For employers, though, they tend to raise questions. Can you ask someone to work on a bank holiday? What happens if they don’t usually work that day? And does working a bank holiday mean paying them more?

This reassuring guide for employers covers everything you need to know about bank holidays.

Skip to: 

• Bank holiday entitlement for employees

• What the law says about bank holiday entitlement

• Bank holiday pay and when extra pay applies

• How entitlement works for part-time, zero-hours, and agency workers

• UK bank holiday dates for 2026 to 2028

• How to calculate bank holiday entitlement correctly

• Take the stress out of bank holiday management

• FAQs

Are employees entitled to bank holidays off?

Employees don't have an automatic right to paid time off on bank holidays. Whether your staff get bank holidays off, and whether they're paid for them depends on the wording in their employment contract.

What does UK law say about bank holiday entitlement?

The law sets out a minimum amount of paid leave. Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, workers can receive a minimum of 5.6 weeks' paid holiday per year. For a full-time employee working five days a week, that’s 28 days. But the law doesn't treat bank holidays as a separate category. Employers can choose to include bank and public holidays within that 28-day statutory minimum, or offer them on top. Both approaches are perfectly legal.

This means two employees at different companies could receive their full legal holiday entitlement but have very different experiences of bank holidays. Here’s how that might look.

• Michael works in retail. His contract states he receives 28 days' annual leave, including bank holidays. As there are eight bank holidays in England and Wales, Michael has 20 days left to book himself. His employer can require him to work on a bank holiday if the business needs it, which is common in retail. When he does work, there’s no legal obligation to pay him extra because his contract doesn’t specify it.

• Karen works in financial services. Her contract gives her 25 days' annual leave plus eight bank holidays for a total of 33 days. Her bank holidays are guaranteed days off on top of her standard leave allowance. Her employer can’t require her to work on a bank holiday without her agreement, as this isn’t mentioned in her contract.

It’s important to make bank holiday entitlement clear in your contract to avoid confusion or disputes. Here’s some common terminology you could use:

• Bank holidays included within the 28-day minimum.

• Bank holidays in addition to the 28-day minimum.

• Enhanced entitlement. Some employers offer more generous leave than statutory minimums, such as five extra days of leave for long-serving employees.
  

Do employees get paid extra for working on bank holidays?  

Many employees assume that working on a bank holiday automatically means they qualify for overtime pay. But there’s no legal requirement for employers to pay a premium rate to anyone working on a bank holiday. An employee’s contract outlines what they receive, and if there’s no mention of overtime, also known as enhanced pay, the employer only needs to pay the employee their normal rate.

Many employers do choose to offer enhanced pay on bank holidays. This practice is a great way to reward staff for their loyalty and hard work, and it can also boost employee retention rates. Common overtime arrangements include:

• Time and a half: the employee receives 1.5x their normal hourly rate

• Double time: the employee receives 2x their normal rate

• A day in lieu: the employee takes a replacement day off at another time

• A combination: for example, normal pay plus a day in lieu

Offering enhanced pay to some employees but not others can create legal and cultural problems. To keep things fair, clearly document your approach to overtime in your employment contract and apply it consistently across your team.  

Holiday entitlement and bank holidays: how it works for different types of workers  

Here's a straightforward breakdown of how bank holiday entitlement applies to each type of worker, so you can get it right across your whole team. 

Worker type	Statutory entitlement	Are bank holidays included?	Key points to know
Full-time employees	5.6 weeks (28 days)	It depends on the contract. Employers can include them within the 28 days or offer them on top.	Check whether contracts say "28 days including bank holidays" or "28 days + 8 bank holidays"
Part-time workers	5.6 weeks pro rata	Yes, on a pro rata basis.	Employers can’t treat part-time workers less favourably than full-time workers. If a bank holiday falls on a non-working day, part-timers are still entitled to the equivalent time off.
Zero-hours and irregular-hours workers	Accrues based on hours worked	Yes, proportionally.	Entitlement is based on hours worked. Use the 12.07% accrual method for leave years starting on or after 1st April 2024.
Agency workers	Same as comparable permanent employees	Yes, after 12 weeks.	After 12 weeks in the same role, agency workers are entitled to the same basic conditions as permanent staff.

 

Calculating bank holiday entitlement for part-time workers can be tricky, particularly when bank holidays fall on non-working days or schedules vary week to week. Read our step-by-step guide on How to calculate bank holiday entitlement for part-time workers.

 

Common bank holiday working rules employers get wrong  

Bank holidays might only come around a handful of times a year, but they can be confusing. Here are four challenges you might encounter and how to handle them.

Forgetting to update contracts when bank holiday policy changes

If you decide to change your approach to bank holidays, make sure you reflect it in writing, as verbal agreements and informal arrangements don't protect either party.

It's also worth checking how your contracts refer to bank holidays in the first place. Contracts that guarantee a specific number of days, such as "20 days plus 8 bank holidays,” aren’t accurate in years when the government announces an additional bank holiday. This happened with the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023 and the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

Contracts that include "the standard public holidays in England and Wales" give employers more flexibility in how they handle one-off events.

Ignoring bank holiday accrual during maternity and paternity leave

It’s easy to overlook this, but employees on maternity or paternity leave continue to build up their full holiday entitlement, including any bank holidays they’re entitled to. Those days don’t disappear while they’re on leave.

When they return, any unused entitlement needs to be available for them to take, or carried over if there wasn’t a chance to use it. According to ACAS, if employers don’t handle this correctly, they could face a discrimination case.

Not having a clear day-in-lieu policy

If an employee works on a bank holiday, or can't take one because it falls on a non-working day, they're usually entitled to a replacement day off. But this must be clearly worded in your employment documentation, so your workers understand what is available to them.

A day-in-lieu policy protects you and your employees by setting out:

• How quickly the employee must take the replacement day

• Whether they can add it to their existing annual leave

• Who’s responsible for arranging the day in lieu

Miscalculating entitlement for workers with irregular hours

In 2024, the rules around holiday entitlement for irregular-hours workers changed. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours workers build up statutory holiday based on the hours they work in each pay period. In most cases, this is calculated as 12.07% of the hours they worked.

Some employers confuse holiday entitlement with holiday pay. The 12.07% method works out accrued leave. Employers can work out holiday pay by calculating a worker’s average pay over the previous 52 paid weeks, unless the employer uses rolled-up holiday pay. Breathe’s holiday calculator and our guide to zero hours contracts can help with these steps.

UK bank holiday dates 2026, 2027, and 2028: England and Wales

Use these dates to plan your holiday calendar in advance. If a bank holiday falls on a weekend, a substitute day is usually provided on the next working day.

A note on Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland has nine bank holidays a year, which differ from England and Wales. In Scotland:

• 2nd January is an additional bank holiday

• Easter Monday is not a bank holiday

• St Andrew's Day on 30th November is a bank holiday

• Summer bank holiday is in early rather than late August

Northern Ireland has 10 bank holidays a year, observing all the same dates as England and Wales plus:

• St Patrick's Day on 17th March

• Battle of the Boyne on 12th July
  
  

How to calculate bank holiday entitlement

Employers can calculate bank holiday entitlement accurately based on the type of worker and the number of hours they work.

Full-time employees

For full-time employees working five days a week, the calculation is straightforward. Multiply the number of working days by 5.6 weeks to get the statutory minimum:

• 5 days × 5.6 weeks = 28 days

The next step is checking whether bank holidays are included within those 28 days or offered on top. As we covered earlier, both are legal, but the contract must make it clear which applies.

Part-time workers

Part-time workers take an adjusted version of the 5.6 weeks, based on how many days they work. The formula is the same:

• Days worked per week × 5.6 weeks = annual leave entitlement
  

An employee working three days a week would receive:

• 3 days × 5.6 weeks = 16.8 days

If bank holidays fall on their working days, they’re deducted from the total. If a bank holiday falls on a non-working day, they're owed the equivalent time in lieu. This is where part-time calculations can get fiddly, particularly in irregular or shift-based working patterns.

Workers with irregular hours

Since the 2024 holiday pay and entitlement reforms, workers with irregular hours build up holiday based on the hours they work, instead of receiving a fixed allowance at the start of the year. When they take leave, their pay is calculated using their average earnings over the previous 52 weeks.

To calculate bank holiday entitlement for part-time and irregular-hours workers, use our free holiday entitlement calculator to take the maths off your plate.