Remember that under the Working Time Regulations 1998, all workers are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday, which means 28 days for a full-timer. Time off on bank holidays counts towards this entitlement. Due to the moving Easter holidays, rather than the typical eight bank holidays in a year, April 2026 – March 2027 will have ten bank holidays, while April 2027 – March 2028 will have only six. So what does this mean for employers with a 1 April to 31 March holiday year and will workers get an extra two days’ holiday this year?
Your first port of call is to check your contractual wording around holiday entitlement. This could throw up a number of different scenarios. Here are a few (using full-time workers as an example):
- The contract states: “you are entitled to 20 days’ holiday plus all bank holidays in England and Wales”.
For April 2026 – March 2027 this would mean that your employees would be entitled to take 30 days’ paid holiday. This is above the statutory minimum entitlement of 28 days and so legally this is not a problem. However, without specific wording which has anticipated this exact scenario you would not be able to deduct the extra two days’ holiday, as the contractual entitlement is to 20 days plus “all” the bank holidays.
However, for April 2027 – March 2028, based on the contract wording, your employees would only be entitled to 26 days’ holiday. As this is below the statutory minimum entitlement, you would have to give them an extra two days’ paid holiday in order to ensure you are meeting your holiday obligations under the Working Time Regulations 1998.
- The contract states: “you are entitled to 20 days’ holiday plus 8 bank holidays”.
For April 2026 –March 2027, you could choose not to give them two of the ten bank holidays (as contractually they are only entitled to 8 and there is no automatic right to time off on a bank holiday). However, unless they agree otherwise, you would not be able to deduct these from the 20 day holiday entitlement as the contract says that they are entitled to 20 days’ holiday (plus 8 bank holidays). You would instead have to get them to work two bank holidays, which may not be practical if the office is closed, and would certainly be unpopular even if remote working is a possibility. From an employee relations perspective, you may decide to let it go.
For the April 2027 to March 2028 holiday year, as there are only six bank holidays in that year, you would need to give your employees an additional two days’ paid holiday to ensure they receive their statutory minimum entitlement.
- The contract states: “you are entitled to 28 days’ holiday inclusive of bank holidays”. In this scenario, there is no risk of being in breach of the Working Time Regulations 1998 as you will always be giving your employees their statutory minimum holiday entitlement (28 days for a full-time employee). It just means that for the April 2026 – March 2027 holiday year, employees will have less choice about when they can take their holiday as ten of the days will be accounted for by bank holidays. However, in the April 2027 – March 2028 holiday year, they will be able to take 22 days’ holiday on dates of their choosing, with only six having to be taken on bank holidays. Both of these scenarios could cause some confusion for employees as they will probably not have appreciated the impact.
- The contract states: “you are entitled to 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays”. Again there is no risk of you being in breach of the Working Time Regulations 1998. However, for the 2026 to 2027 holiday year, your employees would be entitled to 35 days’ paid holiday (including bank holidays) when you might only have been expecting them to be entitled to 33 days. By contrast, for the 2027 to 2028 holiday year they would only be entitled to 31 days’ holiday (including bank holidays).
This situation repeats itself from time to time so employers with an April to March holiday year should review their contractual wording around holiday entitlement and bank holidays. You will want to ensure both that you are complying with your holiday obligations under the Working Time Regulations 1998 and that you are not inadvertently giving workers a contractual entitlement to more holiday than intended. Now is a good time to do this, as the Fair Work Agency will be taking on responsibility for in 2027 and changing terms of employment will become significantly more difficult due to the Government’s “fire and re-hire” changes.