Holiday pay calculator for irregular hours and variable pay

A week's pay for holiday purposes is averaged over the 52 weeks before the calculation date for which remuneration was payable (WTR reg 16(3)(e)(ii)) — or, if the worker has been employed for under 52 complete weeks, over the number of complete weeks actually worked (reg 16(3)(e)(i)).

The 104-week figure is not a default window. It is a conditional bound (reg 16(3)(f)(i)): it only widens the search past 52 weeks once a week is skipped because no remuneration at all was payable for it. With no such week, the walk never needs more than 52 weeks of data and the 104-week bound never engages — treating it as a default reference window is the most common hand-calculation error this tool corrects for.

If, inside that 104-week bound, fewer than 52 paid weeks exist, reg 16(3)(f)(ii) makes the divisor the number of weeks actually found, not 52 — the calculator's reference-period summary states this explicitly whenever it applies.

For irregular-hours and part-year workers, leave accrues on the last day of each pay period at 12.07% of the hours worked in that pay period (WTR reg 15B(3)(b)) — this is a rate stated directly in the regulation, not something the calculator derives.

Reg 15B(4) caps accrual at 28 days in any leave year — but that cap is measured in days while accrual here is measured in hours, and converting between the two needs a normal-day-length assumption the statute does not supply. This calculator does not silently apply that cap; it flags that the cap exists instead.

A fractional hour of 30 minutes or more rounds up to a full hour; anything less is dropped (reg 15B(5)).

These workers do not get the 4-week / 1.6-week split described below. Regs 13(A1) and 13A(A1) switch off the separate reg 13 / reg 13A entitlements for reg 15B leave, so there is one entitlement, paid at one rate.

Reg 16A(2) offers an alternative for reg 15B leave only: rolled-up holiday pay, a 12.07% uplift added to remuneration for work done, paid as the work is done rather than when leave is taken. It is not available for regular-hours workers' reg 13 or reg 13A leave.

WTR reg 16(3ZA) requires three kinds of payment to be included in a week's pay for entitlement under regs 13 and 15B:

• Task-linked commission (WTR 1998 reg 16(3ZA)(a)): “payments, including commission payments, which are intrinsically linked to the performance of tasks which a worker is obliged to carry out under the terms of their contract.”
• Status, seniority or professional/personal qualification payments (WTR 1998 reg 16(3ZA)(b)): “payments for professional or personal status relating to length of service, seniority or professional qualifications.”
• Regularly paid overtime (WTR 1998 reg 16(3ZA)(c)): “other payments, such as overtime payments, which have been regularly paid to a worker in the 52 weeks preceding the calculation date.”

Reg 13A leave (the additional 1.6 weeks) is absent from that list — see the next question for what that means in practice.

“5.6 weeks” of statutory leave is not a single statutory figure — never write it as one. It is 4 weeks under reg 13(1) plus 1.6 weeks under reg 13A(2)(e), with the combined entitlement capped at 28 days by reg 13A(3).

The split matters because reg 16(3ZA)'s enhanced-pay components apply only to entitlement under regs 13 and 15B — reg 13A is not in that list. Reg 13A leave is still paid a week's pay under reg 16(1) / ERA 1996 ss.221–224 as modified by reg 16(3); it just lacks the reg 16(3ZA) additions, so calling it “basic pay” overstates the difference.

Nothing in the WTR orders reg 13 leave against reg 13A leave when a worker takes some of each. This calculator assumes reg 13 leave is taken first, purely as a convention to make the split calculable — it is disclosed as an assumption in every result, not presented as law.

Two commonly cited retention duties do not, on their statutory text, cover holiday pay:

• WTR reg 9 requires two years' records, but only for the 48-hour average working-time limit, night work, and health assessments — annual leave and holiday pay are not in reg 9's list.
• National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 reg 59 requires six years' records, but only for national minimum wage compliance — holiday pay is not mentioned.

What the statute does say: if you pay rolled-up holiday pay, WTR reg 16A(7) requires the itemised pay statement to show the amount of holiday pay paid for that period — a payslip-disclosure duty, with no retention period set by the regulation. ERA 1996 s.8 gives the underlying right to an itemised pay statement, and is likewise silent on how long to keep it.

Nothing else about record retention is stated here, because nothing else is primary-source verifiable.