Rolled-up holiday pay: how the 12.07% uplift works, and who it can be used for

Where this applies: Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland). The regulations below are marked as extending to England, Wales and Scotland on legislation.gov.uk. Northern Ireland has separate holiday rules and is not covered. Not legal advice.

Rolled-up holiday pay means paying holiday pay as an addition to each pay packet instead of when the leave is taken. In Great Britain it is allowed only in the cases set out in regulation 16A of the Working Time Regulations 1998.

What regulation 16A says

Who: reg 16A(1) applies to holiday pay “in respect of leave to which the worker is entitled under regulation 15B”, that is irregular-hours and part-year workers in leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024 (see 12.07% accrual).
How much: reg 16A(2): it “may be paid by way of a 12.07% uplift to the worker’s remuneration for work done”.
When: reg 16A(3): it “must be paid at the same time as the worker’s remuneration for work done”.
Payslips: reg 16A(7): the itemised pay statement “must indicate the amount of holiday pay that has been paid for the period to which the statement relates”.
Sick and statutory leave: reg 16A(4) to (6): a worker paid this way who goes on sick or statutory leave is paid holiday pay each pay period equal to the average holiday pay per pay period over the previous 52 weeks (or the shorter period they have been paid this way).

GOV.UK: “For regular-hours workers (full- or part- time), an employer cannot include an amount for holiday pay in the hourly rate (known as ‘rolled-up holiday pay’). Employers can use rolled-up holiday pay for irregular-hours and part-year workers, unless their leave year began on or before 31 March 2024.”

How to calculate it

Take the worker’s pay for work done in the pay period and multiply by 12.07%. The base is pay for work: don’t include the holiday pay itself.

Our own illustration, not a figure from the legislation or GOV.UK: a worker’s pay for work done in a week is £400.00. The rolled-up holiday pay is £400.00 × 12.07% = £48.28, paid in the same pay run and shown separately on the payslip.

What happens to the leave

The worker still accrues and takes leave under reg 15B; rolled-up pay changes when the leave is paid, not whether it is taken.
Leavers: the payment in lieu of untaken leave under reg 15E(2) does not apply to untaken leave already paid this way (reg 15E(5)).
Carry-over: GOV.UK lists not receiving rolled-up holiday pay a worker was entitled to as one of the cases where they can carry over their whole leave entitlement.

What Leaveproof does

Reads a rolled-up holiday pay amount per pay period from the payroll export, once you have confirmed which column holds it.
Flags rolled-up holiday pay below 12.07% of pay for work in that period (reg 16A(2)).
Flags rolled-up holiday pay for a regular-hours worker (reg 16A(1)), and in a leave year that began before 1 April 2024.
Takes rolled-up holiday pay out of gross pay when you tell it your pay column includes holiday pay, so the base and the 52-week average aren’t overstated.
For leavers paid this way, notes that no payment in lieu is due for that leave.

Leaveproof reads a payroll export saved as CSV, one row per worker per pay period (or per pay item), plus the employer’s leave sheet if there is one. It is designed for exports from Xero Payroll UK and BrightPay, but their report columns are chosen by the user and have not been checked against every layout, so Leaveproof shows the columns it detected and asks you to confirm which is which before it works anything out. It remembers that choice for each employer. Any payroll software that can export pay periods, pay, hours and holiday columns to CSV can be used the same way.

What it doesn’t do

It doesn’t read payslips, so it can’t check the reg 16A(7) payslip line.
It doesn’t calculate the reg 16A(5) payments during sick or statutory leave, or reg 15C accrual during that leave; sick or statutory leave in the year is flagged.

Try it on your own payroll export. Free, no account or sign-up, nothing uploaded: it runs in your browser. The Free plan covers one employer and the first 5 workers (by worker ID) in the records pack and exceptions. Standard ($19 per month or $190 per year) covers every worker for one employer; Bureau ($49 per month) covers any number of employers: see pricing.

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Not legal advice. This guide summarises the statutory minimum rules in the Working Time Regulations 1998 as they apply in Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), checked against legislation.gov.uk and GOV.UK on 27 October 2026. Contracts, collective agreements and individual cases can change the answer; take advice on a specific case. Leaveproof is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Xero or BrightPay. Xero is a trademark of Xero Limited; BrightPay is a trademark of Bright Software Group.