Are bank holidays included in my 28 days of holiday?

A common misunderstanding is that the 8 bank holidays in England and Wales are added on top of your paid holiday. In law, they are not automatic extras.

How the statutory minimum works

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, almost all workers get a minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave a year — 28 days for someone working a five-day week. Your employer can choose to count bank holidays as part of that entitlement. So a contract offering "20 days' holiday plus bank holidays" gives you exactly the statutory minimum, not more.

There is also no automatic right to take bank holidays off, or to extra pay for working them. If your employer requires you to work a bank holiday, they should give you an equivalent day off in lieu or pay for it, and your contract governs the detail. What they cannot do is give you less than 5.6 weeks in total.

Part-time workers get the same entitlement pro rata — three days a week gives 3 ÷ 5 × 28 = 16.8 days. Because many bank holidays fall on Mondays, employers should make sure part-timers who never work Mondays are not short-changed against the pro-rata minimum. Zero-hours and casual workers accrue leave at 12.07% of hours worked. Use our holiday pay calculator to check your figures.

What to check in your contract

• Whether your holiday figure is stated as "including" or "plus" bank holidays
• Whether you can be required to take bank holidays as leave — for example during a Christmas shutdown, where your employer must give at least twice as much notice as the leave required
• How holiday pay is calculated — it must reflect your normal remuneration, including regular overtime and commission, not just basic salary

If your total paid leave comes to less than 5.6 weeks a year, raise it in writing with your employer, and if that fails you can pursue the shortfall as an unlawful deduction from wages through Acas Early Conciliation and the Employment Tribunal — time limits are three months less one day from the last underpayment.