Free tool

12.07% holiday pay calculator

12.07% of the hours worked is what irregular-hours and part-year staff accrue as paid holiday. Enter the hours to see it in hours, in days, and as a rolled-up holiday pay figure for the payslip.

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How the staff member works

Irregular hours covers zero-hours and part-year staff — the ones the 12.07% method is for.

Holiday accrues at 12.07% of the hours actually worked.

£

Add this to see the 12.07% as a cash figure.

General information, not employment law advice. Rolled-up holiday pay is lawful only for irregular-hours and part-year staff, and only for holiday years starting on or after 1 April 2024. Day-based results assume an 8-hour day, and anything above the statutory minimum is a matter for the contract. Check the contract and the current legislation before acting on a number.

What 12.07% means

Holiday accrues at 12.07% of the hours worked. It is the statutory method for irregular-hours and part-year staff — the casual, variable-shift people most venues run on — and it produces two numbers from the same percentage:

  • 12.07% of hours worked is the paid holiday accrued, in hours.
  • 12.07% of gross pay is the rolled-up holiday pay, in cash.

They are the same figure said twice. 1,200 hours worked accrues 144.8 hours of holiday; at £12.71 an hour, that same 1,200 hours is £15,252 of gross pay, and 12.07% of it is £1,840.92 of holiday pay.

Where the 12.07% comes from

Every UK worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. Take those 5.6 weeks out of the 52-week year and 46.4 working weeks remain. 5.6 ÷ 46.4 = 12.07%. So each hour actually worked earns 12.07% of an hour of paid holiday, which is why the method works for staff whose hours nobody can predict at the start of the year.

Rules as at 28 August 2026. Check the holiday pay and entitlement reforms guidance on GOV.UK before acting on a figure.

Rolled-up holiday pay: who it is for

Paying the 12.07% on each payslip instead of when holiday is taken is rolled-up holiday pay, and three conditions attach to it:

  • It applies to irregular-hours and part-year staff only. Fixed-hours staff cannot be paid this way.
  • It applies to holiday years beginning on or after 1 April 2024.
  • It must be itemised as its own line on each payslip, not folded into the hourly rate.

GOV.UK defines an irregular-hours worker as one whose paid hours in each pay period are, under their contract, wholly or mostly variable; a part-year worker is contracted to work only part of the year, with unpaid periods of at least a week within it.

Applies UK-wide

Statutory holiday entitlement and the 12.07% method are set UK-wide. Unlike business rates, there is no England-only variation here.

The common mistake

Rolling up holiday pay for staff on fixed hours. The 2024 reform legalised it for irregular-hours and part-year staff and nobody else — for a fixed-rota staff member it is still unlawful, however variable the venue feels. If you are working out entitlement for someone on set days, switch this calculator to part-time or full-time: they get 5.6 weeks of their own working pattern, capped at 28 days.

Stop working 12.07% out in a spreadsheet

ClockRota accrues holiday as shifts are worked, so the 12.07% figure is a number you look up rather than one you rebuild every pay run. £0 during the public beta, then £9/month for teams up to 5.

Join the public beta

Also useful: labour cost calculator

Find out what percentage of your revenue goes to staff wages, and how that compares to UK hospitality benchmarks.

Try it free

You now have to keep this figure for six years

Since 6 April 2026, records showing holiday entitlement and holiday pay were right have to be kept for six years from the day they were made. What that means for a venue with casual staff.

Read the post

Sources

  1. Holiday pay and entitlement reforms from 1 January 2024 — GOV.UK guidance — the 12.07% method, the rolled-up holiday pay rules, and the definitions of an irregular-hours and a part-year worker
  2. Calculate holiday entitlement — GOV.UK — the official calculator, including irregular hours
  3. Holiday entitlement — GOV.UK — the 5.6 weeks minimum and the 28-day cap

Changelog

30 July 2026Rebuilt on the design system as part of the Astro migration. Calculation carried over unchanged.
26 August 2026Stamped the statutory figures with an "as at" date, and moved into the tools content collection so review_by is enforced at build.
28 August 2026Re-pointed at the 12.07% method. Irregular hours is now the default mode, rolled-up holiday pay is its own figure rather than an implied one, and every result is a shareable URL. Arithmetic unchanged; rules re-checked against GOV.UK.
22 September 2026New page title and description, naming zero-hours staff. Calculation unchanged.