They can. There is no automatic legal right to paid leave on a bank holiday in the UK, and your employer is entitled to count bank holidays towards your 5.6 weeks of statutory holiday rather than giving them on top.
Whether they do is a matter for your contract.
Scotland has nine but does not observe Easter Monday, which is why the difference from England and Wales is one day rather than two. There is no automatic right to take any of them off.
Why this matters so much
England and Wales have 8 permanent bank holidays a year. If your employer counts them within your entitlement, you are left with 20 days to choose freely. If they are given on top, you have 28 free days plus the 8 fixed ones.
That is a difference of eight days a year. It is one of the largest variables in a UK employment package and it is routinely glossed over in job adverts.
Two phrases to watch for:
- “28 days including bank holidays” — 20 days of your own choosing
- “28 days plus bank holidays” — 28 of your own, plus 8 fixed
Both satisfy the law. They are very different jobs.
How many bank holidays there are
The number depends on where you work:
| Nation | Permanent bank holidays |
|---|---|
| England and Wales | 8 |
| Scotland | 9 |
| Northern Ireland | 10 |
Scotland has 2 January and St Andrew’s Day, but does not observe Easter Monday as a bank holiday. Northern Ireland has St Patrick’s Day and the Battle of the Boyne on 12 July.
Extra one-off bank holidays are occasionally declared for national events. These carry no automatic entitlement either — whether you get the day off and whether it is paid depends on your contract.
No right to a day off, and no right to extra pay
Two common assumptions, both wrong:
There is no right to take a bank holiday off. If your employer needs you to work it — as retail, hospitality and healthcare routinely do — you can be required to.
There is no right to enhanced pay for working one. Time-and-a-half or double time on bank holidays is a contractual benefit some employers offer. It is not a legal entitlement.
When a bank holiday falls at a weekend
When Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday, a substitute weekday is designated instead. That substitute day is the bank holiday.
If you work Monday to Friday, substitution generally works in your favour — you get a weekday off you would otherwise have worked.
If you work weekends, or work part time on days that rarely coincide with bank holidays, substitution can mean you benefit less than colleagues. This is a common source of unfairness for part-time staff, and it leads directly to the next point.
Part-time workers and bank holidays
Under the Part-time Workers Regulations, part-time staff must not be treated less favourably than comparable full-time colleagues.
Bank holidays create a specific problem here. Most fall on a Monday. Someone working Tuesday to Thursday would receive almost no benefit from bank holidays while a full-time colleague receives all eight.
The usual fix is to give part-time workers a pro-rated bank holiday allowance added to their leave, which they can take whenever they choose. Someone working three days a week would get 3/5 of eight days — 4.8 days — regardless of which days those bank holidays fall on.
Employers are not required to use that specific method, but they must avoid less favourable treatment.
Working out what you actually have
If your contract says your entitlement includes bank holidays, your freely-choosable leave is your total minus the bank holidays in your nation.
Checking your own position
- Read your contract or offer letter. It should state whether bank holidays are included or additional.
- Look at your holiday booking system. If bank holidays are pre-deducted from your balance, they are included.
- Count backwards. If your stated allowance is 20 days and you do not work bank holidays, they are almost certainly included in a 28-day statutory entitlement.
- Ask. Your employer must be able to tell you.
Common questions
Can my employer make me use annual leave for a bank holiday closure? Yes, if the contract allows it, and provided they give notice of at least twice the length of the leave.
I started a new job in December — do I get Christmas bank holidays? It depends on your accrued entitlement at that point and how your employer treats bank holidays. If they are included in your allowance and you have accrued little, you may need unpaid leave or to take it from a future allowance.
Do bank holidays count towards the 5.6 week minimum? Yes, they can. The 5.6 weeks is the floor, and bank holidays may sit inside it.
Sources
- UK bank holidays — GOV.UK
- Holiday entitlement — GOV.UK
- Bank holiday entitlement — Acas
Checked against source on 30 August 2026. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
Written by Nathan Cole
I built the calculators on HoursHQ and check every statutory figure against GOV.UK, Acas and the legislation itself before it goes live. Where the law is genuinely unclear, I say so rather than guessing.