Free tools · payroll
Hospitality runs on variable hours, which makes holiday entitlement a running total rather than a fixed number of days. This works out what a team member has accrued over a period, what it is worth in money, and what is left once you subtract the leave they have already taken.
The calculator
Nothing is sent anywhere — the maths runs in your browser and we never see what you type. Every field starts at a deliberately ordinary default rather than a flattering one.
Before you quote the figure at anyone
01
Rules for irregular-hours and part-year workers changed for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, including an option to roll holiday pay up as an uplift on each payslip. Which basis applies depends on the contract in front of you, so confirm it with payroll before quoting a figure to anyone.
02
Holiday pay for people whose earnings vary is normally calculated on average pay across a reference period, and tips, commission and regular overtime can form part of that average. This page uses one flat rate because your payroll system already knows the real one.
03
The number that matters to a board is the total across everybody, and it moves every week as hours are worked and leave is taken. Run your five heaviest-hours team members through this and you will usually find the figure is material enough to belong in the monthly accounts.
Questions
Getting a number you don’t recognise from your own accounts is usually worth a conversation rather than another spreadsheet.
The common basis is 12.07% of the hours actually worked, which is 5.6 weeks of statutory leave spread across the 46.4 weeks a worker is available. Multiply hours worked by 12.07% for accrued holiday hours, then by the hourly rate for the cash value. Rules for irregular-hours and part-year workers changed from April 2024, so check which basis your contracts use.
It is simply 5.6 divided by 46.4. Statutory entitlement is 5.6 weeks of paid leave a year, which leaves 46.4 weeks in which work is actually done, and expressing the first as a percentage of the second gives 12.07%. That is why it applies to hours worked rather than to hours contracted.
It can. Where pay varies, holiday pay is normally based on average earnings over a reference period, and payments that form part of normal remuneration — regular overtime, commission and in some arrangements tips — can count towards that average. How your tips are collected and allocated affects the answer, which is a question for your payroll adviser rather than a calculator.
For irregular-hours and part-year workers, rolled-up holiday pay was reintroduced for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, paid as an uplift on each payslip and shown separately. It does not apply to everyone on the payroll, so the safe approach is to establish which of your contracts are in scope before changing how anyone is paid.
Untaken accrued holiday has to be paid on termination, so a team member who has worked heavy hours and taken little leave represents a bill that lands the week they resign. In a high-turnover operation that is a predictable, recurring cost, and it is one more reason the leaver count on a rota has consequences well past the recruitment advert.
WHY Hospitality