Carry Over Annual Leave UK: Employer Rules, Limits & Examples (2026)

To manage year-end holiday balances lawfully in the UK, employers need to distinguish between the three layers of annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998: the 4 weeks of core statutory leave under Regulation 13 (20 days for a full-time 5-day worker), the 1.6 weeks of additional statutory leave under Regulation 13A (8 days for a 5-day worker, bringing the statutory total to 5.6 weeks or 28 days), and any enhanced contractual holiday above 5.6 weeks.

In an ordinary leave year where the employee has been at work and able to book time off, the first 4 weeks of core Regulation 13 leave must be taken inside the leave year and cannot be carried over into the next year, even if both the employer and employee would prefer to roll it forward. By contrast, the additional 1.6 weeks of Regulation 13A leave (up to 8 days for a full-time worker, pro-rated for part-time staff) can be carried into the next leave year if there is a relevant written agreement (such as the employment contract or staff handbook policy).

Any enhanced contractual leave above the 28-day statutory minimum is governed entirely by your company policy. Many UK employers allow staff to carry over up to 3 or 5 unused days into the first 3 months of the new leave year, while operating a 'use it or lose it' rule for anything above that cap, provided statutory exceptions do not apply.

Employees continue to accrue their statutory annual leave while off work on sick leave. Where a regular-hours worker is unable to take their statutory holiday before the end of the leave year because of sickness absence, UK law (codified in Regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations following the 2024 reforms) entitles them to carry over up to 4 weeks of unused Regulation 13 leave into the following leave year.

Statutory holiday carried over because of sickness does not last forever: the employee must be allowed to take it within 18 months of the end of the leave year in which it originally accrued. If the employee returns to work before that 18-month window expires, managers should agree a sensible plan to use those carried-over days alongside current-year holiday.

Different rules apply to irregular-hours and part-year workers (who accrue leave at 12.07% of hours worked under Regulation 15B): where sickness prevents them from taking leave, they can carry over up to their full 5.6 weeks of statutory leave, also subject to the 18-month expiry period from the end of the leave year in which it accrued.

Statutory annual leave continues to accrue normally throughout Ordinary and Additional Maternity Leave, Adoption Leave, Paternity Leave, Shared Parental Leave, Parental Bereavement Leave, and Neonatal Care Leave. Because an employee cannot be on statutory family leave and annual leave on the exact same day, any statutory holiday (up to the full 5.6 weeks / 28 days) that could not be taken in the current leave year because of family leave must be carried over into the next leave year.

In practice, the cleanest way to handle maternity or adoption holiday accrual is to calculate the accrued days before the employee begins their leave and agree in writing when the leave will be taken, for example taking the current leave year's remaining allowance immediately before maternity leave starts, and attaching the carried-over days to the end of maternity leave before returning to work.

Separately, under Regulation 13(16) of the Working Time Regulations 1998, an employer cannot enforce a 'use it or lose it' forfeiture of the 4-week core statutory holiday unless the employer can show that it gave the worker a reasonable opportunity to take the leave, encouraged them to take it, and informed them clearly before year-end that untaken leave would be lost. Sending automated balance reminders in Q3 and Q4 protects your business and ensures staff actually rest.

When holiday is carried over into a new leave year, keep the carried-over balance and its expiry date distinct from the new year's fresh entitlement. When an employee books a holiday in the first quarter of the new leave year, deduct from the expiring carried-over days first so the worker does not accidentally forfeit carried-over leave while using new-year leave.

You can set up automatic carry-over caps, expiry months (for example, carried-over days expire after 3 months), and written handbook clauses in minutes using our free UK Staff Holiday Policy Generator or inside Leavely's Leave Policies settings.