If you are checking rolled-up holiday pay in the uk, here is the direct answer: rolled-up holiday pay is holiday pay paid to you little by little, on every payslip, instead of in one lump when you take time off. For workers with irregular hours or part-year work, an employer may add at least 12.07% of your total pay in each pay period as a separate item on your payslip. That extra amount is your holiday pay, paid in advance. When you later take your holiday, that time off itself is unpaid, because you have already been paid for it, payslip by payslip. You do not lose the right to take the time off. You simply get the money for it earlier, spread across the year.
Rolled-Up Holiday Pay in the UK: The Short Answer
Rolled-up holiday pay in the uk works like this. Almost every worker is legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. For someone working five days a week, that is 28 days. Workers whose hours change from one pay period to the next, and workers who only work part of the year, build up that leave as they go: their entitlement is 12.07% of the hours they worked in each pay period. For those workers only, the employer has a choice about how the money is paid. The employer can pay holiday pay in the traditional way, when the worker takes leave. Or the employer can roll it up: pay at least 12.07% of the worker’s total pay for the period, on top of normal pay, at the same time as the pay for the work itself, and show it as a separate item on the payslip.
Three points in that description matter more than anything else. First, rolled-up holiday pay is only for irregular-hours and part-year workers, for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Second, it must be on top of your normal pay, not folded into your hourly rate so that you cannot see it. Third, it does not cancel your right to time off. If your employer is using rolled-up pay, you still get your full statutory leave. You take the days, and you do not get paid again for them, because the pay for those days has already arrived on your earlier payslips.
Who Qualifies for Rolled-Up Holiday Pay in the UK — and Who Does Not
The first question to settle is whether you are in the group the rule covers at all. GOV.UK divides workers into two broad groups for this purpose, and the line between them is about how regular your hours are, not about how many hours you work in total.
An irregular-hours worker is someone whose hours, under their contract, often or always change from one pay period to the next. Zero-hours workers, casual workers, and many bank and agency staff fall into this group. If your contract says your hours are wholly or mostly variable, you are likely an irregular-hours worker, even if some months happen to look similar.
A part-year worker is someone who has periods of at least a week in a leave year when they do not need to work and are not paid. Term-time staff are the classic example: they work during school terms and have unpaid weeks during school holidays. They are not irregular-hours workers in the same sense, because their term-time hours may be fixed, but they are still in the group for rolled-up pay, because they do not work for part of the year.
Regular-hours workers are outside the group, however few hours they work. A part-time worker who works the same three days every week, all year round, is a regular-hours worker. A full-time salaried worker on fixed hours is a regular-hours worker. For regular-hours workers, GOV.UK is clear: an employer cannot include an amount for holiday pay in the hourly rate. That is still called rolled-up holiday pay, and for those workers it is not allowed. They must be paid for their leave when they take it, in the normal way.
| Worker type | Example | Rolled-up pay allowed? |
|---|---|---|
| Irregular hours | Zero-hours care worker, casual warehouse worker | Yes, for leave years from 1 April 2024 |
| Part-year | Term-time teaching assistant | Yes, for leave years from 1 April 2024 |
| Regular part-time | Same 3 days every week, all year | No — paid when leave is taken |
| Regular full-time | Fixed 37.5 hours every week | No — paid when leave is taken |
Where the 12.07% Figure Comes From
The number 12.07% looks oddly precise, and workers often assume it was chosen at random or rounded up by an employer. It was not. It is the same fraction that GOV.UK uses for leave accrual, worked out from the statutory entitlement itself.
Every worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. A year has 52 weeks. If you take 5.6 weeks off, the weeks you actually work are 52 minus 5.6, which is 46.4 weeks. Divide the holiday weeks by the working weeks — 5.6 divided by 46.4 — and you get 0.1207, or 12.07%. In other words, for every week you work, you earn just over a tenth of a week of holiday. For every hour you work, you earn just over seven minutes of paid leave.
How Rolled-Up Holiday Pay in the UK Is Calculated
The calculation itself is simple, which is one reason employers like the method. Take your total pay for the pay period, and multiply it by 12.07%. That is the minimum rolled-up holiday pay for that period. GOV.UK describes the calculation as 12.07% of a worker’s total pay, and says the holiday pay should be paid at the same time as the worker is paid for the work done in each pay period.
Worked through with round numbers, the maths for rolled-up holiday pay in the uk is easy to check on your own payslip. The formula is: Rolled-up holiday pay = total pay for the pay period × 0.1207
Worked Examples: Checking Your Own Payslip
Example 1: A zero-hours worker paid monthly
Maya works on a zero-hours contract in hospitality. In one month she works 80 hours at £13.00 an hour. Her normal pay for the month is 80 × £13.00, which is £1,040. Her rolled-up holiday pay is £1,040 × 12.07%, which is £125.53. Her gross pay for the month is therefore £1,040 plus £125.53, which is £1,165.53, before tax and National Insurance. On her payslip, the £125.53 should appear as a separate line, clearly marked as holiday pay, so she can see that the extra money is holiday pay and not, say, an overtime premium or a one-off payment.
If Maya then takes a week off, she takes the time, but under rolled-up holiday pay in the uk she does not receive another payment for that week. She has already received the holiday pay for the hours she worked, month by month. That is the trade at the heart of rolled-up pay: money spread across the year, time off taken unpaid when it comes.
Example 2: A casual worker paid weekly
Tom works casual shifts in a warehouse, paid weekly. In one week he works 40 hours at £14.00 an hour, giving normal pay of £560. His rolled-up holiday pay for that week is £560 × 12.07%, which is £67.59. His gross pay for the week is £627.59 before deductions. The following week he works only 24 hours, so his normal pay is £336 and his rolled-up holiday pay is £40.56. The holiday pay moves with his hours, because it is a percentage of what he actually earned, not a fixed weekly amount.
Example 3: A term-time worker
Aisha works as a term-time teaching assistant. During term time she works fixed hours each week, but she has unpaid weeks during school holidays, so she is a part-year worker. In a typical term-time month her total pay is £1,200. Her rolled-up holiday pay for that month is £1,200 × 12.07%, which is £144.84. During the school holidays, when she is not working and not paid, no rolled-up holiday pay is due, because there is no pay for that period. Her holiday pay has already been paid during the term-time months, month by month.
| Pay period | Normal pay | Rolled-up holiday pay (12.07%) | Gross pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 hours at £13.00 | £1,040.00 | £125.53 | £1,165.53 |
| 40 hours at £14.00 | £560.00 | £67.59 | £627.59 |
| 24 hours at £14.00 | £336.00 | £40.56 | £376.55 |
| 120 hours at £15.00 | £1,800.00 | £217.26 | £2,017.26 |
| £1,200 term-time month | £1,200.00 | £144.84 | £1,344.84 |
If your own payslip does not match this pattern, work through it line by line before assuming an error. Check the pay period, the total pay for that period, and whether the holiday-pay line is 12.07% of that total. A small difference may be rounding, or it may be that your employer pays more than the 12.07% minimum — the percentage is a floor, and a contract can promise more. A large difference, or no separate line at all, is worth asking about. Work out what your own figure should be with our holiday pay calculator.
What Rolled-Up Holiday Pay in the UK Must Show on Your Payslip
The payslip rules are where rolled-up holiday pay most often goes wrong, and they are also the easiest to check. GOV.UK’s reforms guidance says that if an employer intends to start using rolled-up holiday pay, it should tell its workers, and the payment should be clearly marked as a separate item on each payslip. The holiday pay should be paid at the same time as the worker is paid for the work done in each pay period.
In practice, that means three things to look for on every payslip:
First, a separate line. There should be an item that says holiday pay, or rolled-up holiday pay, with its own amount. A single hourly rate described as ‘including holiday pay’, with no separate figure, does not show you what you were paid for holiday and what you were paid for the work itself. That was one of the problems with the old, unlawful form of rolling up, and it is not how the current rules work.
Second, the right timing. The holiday pay for a pay period should arrive with the pay for that period, not months later, and not only at the end of a contract or a season. If you worked in June, the rolled-up holiday pay for June should be on the June payslip.
Third, payment on top of normal pay. GOV.UK’s guidance says rolled-up holiday pay is to be paid in addition to the worker’s normal salary, which should be at National Minimum Wage or above. That matters because it stops an employer from counting the holiday uplift towards the minimum wage. Your basic pay for the hours worked must itself meet the minimum wage, and the holiday pay sits on top of it. If your basic rate alone falls below the minimum wage, adding a holiday-pay line does not fix that.
Rolled-Up Pay vs Accrued Leave: The Same Percentage, Two Jobs
It is easy to mix up rolled-up holiday pay with holiday accrual, because both use 12.07% and both apply to the same workers. They are related, but they answer different questions, and confusing them leads to the most common misunderstandings.
Accrual answers the question: how much leave have I built up? For irregular-hours and part-year workers, the answer is 12.07% of the hours worked in each pay period. GOV.UK gives the example of a worker who worked 30 hours and is paid weekly: 30 × 12.07% is 3.621 hours, which becomes 4 hours of leave, because the entitlement must be rounded up to the nearest hour if it is 0.5 of an hour or more. That leave can be taken from the next pay period. A worker who works 68 hours in a month builds up 8.2 hours of leave, which rounds to 8 hours.
Rolled-up pay answers a different question: when do I get the money for that leave? Under the traditional method, the money arrives when the leave is taken. Under rolled-up pay, the money arrives with each payslip, at 12.07% of total pay for the period. The hours you have built up and the money you have received are two ways of looking at the same entitlement, and they should stay in step with each other over the leave year.
Taking Time Off When You Are on Rolled-Up Holiday Pay in the UK
The hardest part of rolled-up pay for many workers is not the maths. It is the budgeting. Traditional holiday pay gives you a paid week off: you take the week, and the money arrives as usual. Rolled-up pay gives you slightly more money every week or month, and then a week off with no pay. Over the year the total is the same, but the cash flow feels very different, and a worker who spends the uplift as ordinary income can find a holiday week surprisingly tight.
That is why the separate payslip line for rolled-up holiday pay in the uk matters for workers as well as for employers. If you can see the holiday-pay amount on each payslip, you can set that amount aside, in a separate pot or simply as a mental note, for the weeks when you take leave. Some workers find it helps to think of the uplift not as part of their weekly wage, but as holiday money that happens to arrive early. Those are the sums to hold back for the time off they represent.
What Rolled-Up Pay Is Not
A few misunderstandings come up so often that they are worth clearing up directly.
Rolled-up holiday pay in the uk is not payment in lieu of holiday. Payment in lieu — being paid money instead of taking leave — is only allowed when a worker leaves a job, for untaken statutory leave. Rolled-up pay is different: the leave is still taken, and the money is simply paid earlier, period by period. A worker who is still employed cannot be paid off instead of taking their statutory leave, rolled-up or not.
Rolled-up holiday pay is not an overtime premium, a shift premium, or a bonus. Those are separate payments, set by contract, for working extra hours or unsocial hours. Holiday pay is the pay for statutory leave, and the 12.07% uplift is the way of paying it for irregular-hours and part-year workers. If your contract pays extra for weekends or nights, that premium is part of your pay for the period, and your holiday pay is calculated on your total pay. Work out what a weekend or night shift is worth with our shift pay calculator, and what overtime hours are worth with our overtime pay calculator.
Rolled-up holiday pay is not a substitute for the minimum wage, as explained above. And it is not a choice the worker makes alone. Whether an employer uses rolled-up pay or the traditional method is the employer’s decision, subject to the contract. A worker cannot demand rolled-up pay if their employer pays traditionally, and an employer cannot switch a worker to rolled-up pay without checking the contract. What a worker can always do is ask for the arrangement to be explained, and for the payslip to show the separate line the rules require.
If Something Looks Wrong with Rolled-Up Holiday Pay in the UK
Start with the payslip itself, and work through the checks for rolled-up holiday pay in the uk in order. First, is there a separate holiday-pay line? If not, ask your employer or payroll team to explain how holiday pay is being shown, and point to the GOV.UK guidance that it should be clearly marked as a separate item. Second, is the amount at least 12.07% of your total pay for that period? Multiply your total pay by 0.1207 and compare. Third, did it arrive with the pay for the same period? Fourth, is your normal pay, without the holiday uplift, at or above the National Minimum Wage? Fifth, are you actually in the group the rule covers — irregular hours or part-year — or are you a regular-hours worker for whom rolling up is not allowed at all?
If any of those checks fails, raise it in writing, with the payslip dates and the figures, and keep a copy. Many problems are payroll errors — a wrong percentage, a missed period, a line folded into the hourly rate by mistake — and a clear, dated query is the fastest way to get them fixed. If the problem is not fixed, Acas offers free and confidential advice on holiday pay, and GOV.UK’s own holiday entitlement and holiday pay pages are the documents to point to.
Rolled-up holiday pay in the uk is therefore a timing rule, not a different kind of pay. For irregular-hours and part-year workers, from leave years beginning on 1 April 2024, an employer may pay holiday pay as an extra 12.07% on every payslip, shown separately, on top of normal pay, at the same time as the work it relates to. The worker still gets the full 5.6 weeks of leave, still takes the time off, and still needs to budget for the fact
that the time off itself will be unpaid. Check the separate line, check the percentage, and check that your normal pay stands on its own. Once those three checks pass, rolled-up pay is doing what it is meant to do: paying for your holiday, a little at a time, as you earn it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is rolled-up holiday pay in the uk, in simple terms?
It is holiday pay paid a little at a time on every payslip, instead of when you take leave. For irregular-hours and part-year workers, an employer may add at least 12.07% of your total pay in each pay period as a separate item on your payslip. When you later take holiday, that time off is unpaid, because the holiday pay has already been received.
Who can be paid rolled-up holiday pay?
Only irregular-hours workers — whose hours often or always change from one pay period to the next — and part-year workers, who have unpaid weeks during the year, such as term-time staff. It applies for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Regular-hours workers, full-time or part-time, cannot be paid this way and must be paid for leave when they take it.
How is rolled-up holiday pay calculated?
Multiply your total pay for the pay period by 12.07%. For example, £1,040 of pay in a month gives £125.53 of rolled-up holiday pay, and £560 in a week gives £67.59. The 12.07% comes from 5.6 weeks of statutory leave divided by 46.4 working weeks in the year. It is a minimum, so a contract can promise more.
Does rolled-up holiday pay mean I lose my right to take holiday?
No. You still get your full statutory leave, up to 5.6 weeks a year, built up as you work. Rolled-up pay only changes when the money arrives. You take the days off, and you do not get paid again for them, because the pay for those days has already arrived on your earlier payslips.
What should rolled-up holiday pay look like on my payslip?
It should appear as a separate, clearly marked item on each payslip, paid at the same time as the pay for the work in that period, and on top of your normal pay. A single hourly rate described as “including holiday pay”, with no separate figure, does not meet that standard. Your normal pay alone should also be at or above the National Minimum Wage.
What happens to rolled-up holiday pay when I leave my job?
Leaving is worked out from the leave you have accrued and the leave you have taken. Any untaken statutory leave on leaving is paid in lieu, which is a separate rule from rolled-up pay. If you were entitled to rolled-up holiday pay but did not receive it, GOV.UK says you can carry over your whole leave entitlement, so keep your payslips as evidence of what was paid.
