Holiday entitlement for new starters UK (2026 guide)

What new starters are entitled to by law

The Working Time Regulations 1998 give almost every UK worker - employees, casual staff, agency workers, zero-hours workers and most part-time contractors - a statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday per leave year. For a five-day-a-week worker that is 28 days, including bank holidays at the employer's discretion. The right starts on day one. There is no qualifying period.

This matters for new starters specifically because two ideas often get tangled up. The first is whether someone is entitled to leave (yes, immediately). The second is how much they can actually book and take during their first year of service. Those are governed by different rules, and that is what causes most of the confusion.

The 5.6-week figure is a floor, not a ceiling. The contract of employment can offer more. Many UK employers give 25 days plus the eight bank holidays in England and Wales, which works out at 33 days total. Whatever the contractual figure is, the rest of this article applies the same way - just substitute the higher number for 28 in the calculations below.

Two ways to handle leave in the first year

For a worker on regular hours, an employer can choose between two approaches in the first year of employment. Both are legal. Most employers go with the first.

Method 1: Accrual (the 1/12 rule)

Under the accrual system, leave builds up at one-twelfth of the annual entitlement per month. A new joiner cannot book leave that has not yet accrued. After three months in the job they are entitled to a quarter of their annual leave. After six months, half. By the end of the first year, the full amount.

This is the model GOV.UK and ACAS describe in their guidance, and it is the approach most UK employers default to. It protects employers from giving full annual leave to someone who leaves after a few weeks, while still being fair to the worker.

Method 2: Pro-rata upfront

Some employers calculate the full first-year entitlement at the start and let the worker book it whenever they like, treating it the same as any other employee. This is simpler administratively and more generous to the new starter, but it carries a small risk: if the person leaves before they have accrued the leave they have already taken, the employer may need a written "payback clause" in the contract to deduct the difference from final pay.

Pro-rata calculations for mid-year joiners

Almost every new starter joins partway through the company's leave year. That means their entitlement for the current year is a proportion, not the full annual figure. The calculation is the same one used for the 1/12 accrual rule, just applied to the months remaining in the current leave year:

Worked examples

Here are four common new-starter scenarios. Leave year is 1 January to 31 December in each case. The maths uses the 1/12 rule and rounds up to the nearest half day per ACAS guidance.

Example D mirrors the GOV.UK guidance directly: a worker joining on 13 January where the leave year started on 1 January gets 2.5 days for that first part-month (28 ÷ 12 = 2.33, rounded up to the nearest half day), then continues to accrue at 1/12 per month after that. Alternatively, the employer can calculate the first month strictly pro-rata to the actual days worked - GOV.UK explicitly allows this as an option.

Example A in full: full-time joiner, mid-year

Sarah joins on 1 July as a full-time five-day-a-week employee. Her contract gives her 28 days a year (inclusive of bank holidays). The leave year runs January to December.

• Six full months remaining: July, August, September, October, November, December
• 28 ÷ 12 × 6 = 14 days
• This is what she can book between 1 July and 31 December
• From 1 January, her allowance resets to the full 28 days for the new leave year

If Sarah's employer is using the strict accrual model, she will only have 2.33 days available in her first month, building up by another 2.33 days at the start of each subsequent month. By 1 October she will have built up around seven days. If Sarah's employer prefers the upfront-allocation model, she has all 14 days available from day one but cannot exceed that until next year's leave year starts. Both are legal. The employer chooses.

For the underlying mechanics of the annual figure itself - including the 5.6 weeks formula and the 28-day cap - see our full guide to calculating annual leave entitlement in the UK.

Example B in full: part-time joiner

James joins on 1 September working three days a week. Full-time staff get 28 days. The leave year runs January to December.

• Step 1: His full-year entitlement, pro-rated for hours: 5.6 × 3 = 16.8 days
• Step 2: Months remaining in leave year: 4 (September to December)
• Step 3: 16.8 ÷ 12 × 4 = 5.6 days
• Step 4: Round up to the nearest half day: 6 days

Part-time pro-rata always involves two calculations: first reduce the full-time allowance to match the working pattern, then pro-rate again for the joining date. The order does not matter mathematically, but it is worth doing them as separate steps so you can show the working if HR is ever audited. Our part-time holiday entitlement guide walks through the same maths in more depth, including the rules for irregular-hours staff.

Other day-one rights in 2026

Holiday is the headline day-one right but not the only one. The Employment Rights Act 2025 expanded several entitlements from 6 April 2026, and a few more land in 2027. New starters in 2026 should be told about all of these, ideally in their offer letter or induction pack.

The SSP and paternity changes are the biggest practical shifts for HR systems in 2026. If your payroll software still applies the three-day waiting period for sickness, it needs updating. If your paternity policy says "26 weeks' qualifying service" without distinguishing leave from pay, it needs rewording.

Probation periods and holiday requests

Probation is a contractual concept, not a statutory one. Being on probation does not change a worker's holiday rights. They still accrue 5.6 weeks of statutory leave, they can still request to take it, and the employer cannot refuse holiday outright on the basis that they are still in their probation period.

What an employer can do is:

• Limit booking to accrued leave only using the 1/12 rule, throughout the entire first year of employment
• Refuse a specific request for sound business reasons, provided notice is given at least equal to the length of the leave requested
• Decline carry-over of unused leave at the end of the leave year, where the contract permits
• Set a notice period for booking - typically requesting twice the length of the leave (so two weeks' notice for a one-week holiday)

What an employer cannot do is block someone from using their statutory entitlement entirely. That would breach the Working Time Regulations and could trigger a tribunal claim for unlawful deduction from wages.

Common mistakes employers make

Five errors keep coming up in the new-starter tribunals and HR queries we read:

1. Saying "no holiday in your first three months." This is unlawful. Workers accrue from day one. Even under the 1/12 rule, by the start of month two they have built up some leave they can use.
2. Rounding fractional days down. ACAS guidance is unambiguous: round up, never down. 5.6 days becomes 6, not 5.
3. Forgetting to pro-rate the bank holiday allowance. If your contract gives "20 days plus bank holidays", a part-time joiner on three days a week needs both numbers pro-rated to their working pattern. Otherwise they get more bank holidays than full-time staff proportionally - or fewer, depending on which days they work.
4. Not communicating the rules. A new starter should not have to ask whether they can book holiday in their first month. Put it in the leave policy and the induction. Our leave policy template guide covers what to include.
5. Treating probation as a holiday-block. Probation gives the employer flexibility to dismiss with shorter notice; it does not suspend statutory rights. The two are independent.

If a new starter leaves before the end of their first year, the same accrual rule applies in reverse: pay them for any leave accrued but not taken. Our leaver pay guide covers the calculation in full, including what to do if they have taken more than they have accrued.

Sources

Frequently asked questions