Bank holiday pay for UK shift teams: what you owe and what you choose

Quick answer. In the UK there is no automatic right to extra pay, or to time off, on a bank holiday. The only legal floor is 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. Whether bank holidays count towards that, and whether you pay a premium to work them, comes down to your contract and your own policy.

That surprises a lot of owners, and plenty of staff. "Double time on bank holidays" is one of the most repeated bits of workplace folklore going. Some employers do it. The law does not make anyone.

This guide sorts out what you owe, what you choose, and how to put it on a rota without a row on the Friday before Easter.

What does the law actually require on a bank holiday?

Very little. Here is the short list.

• Whether a worker has to work bank holidays is up to the employer. Acas is clear on this.
• Workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. For someone on a five-day week that is 28 days.
• Bank holidays can count towards those 5.6 weeks, or be given on top. That is the employer's choice, and the contract should say which.
• Someone who works a bank holiday must still receive their full 5.6 weeks as paid time off.
• There is no pay in lieu of bank holidays. The one exception is untaken statutory holiday when someone leaves.

So there are two separate questions, and they get tangled. One is time off: do they get the day, and does it come out of their holiday? The other is pay: if they work it, do they get more? The law answers the first loosely and the second not at all.

The overtime question

The same goes for overtime. There is no automatic right to overtime pay, and a higher rate or time off in lieu (TOIL) is the employer's choice. Pay for the extra hours still cannot drop below the National Minimum Wage. Acas has a page on pay for working extra hours if you want the detail for a specific set-up.

From 1 April 2026 the rates are £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20, and £8.00 for under 18s and apprentices (GOV.UK). Treat those as the floor, not a target. Nobody should be pricing a bank holiday shift off the minimum.

Does a premium rate become a legal obligation?

Not by law, but often by contract. If your employment contract promises a bank holiday rate, you owe it. If you have paid one every year and staff reasonably expect it, custom and practice may have made it part of the deal, and that is an argument you do not want to be on the wrong side of.

Premium pay on bank holidays is common, but it is a choice, not a rule. Cafés, pubs and care settings often offer it as the price of getting people in on a day most would rather be off. A shop that closes or trades quietly may not need to.

If you are not sure what your contracts say, read them before you publish the rota. Acas is the right place for contract-specific answers.

Do bank holidays come out of the 28 days?

This is where most small employers get tripped up, so check your contract wording against these two models.

Included. Bank holidays count as part of the statutory 5.6 weeks. For a full-timer on a five-day week, the 28 days include the bank holidays, and what is left is the holiday they book themselves.

On top. Bank holidays are given in addition. Staff get their 28 days plus the bank holidays, which is more generous and costs more.

Either is lawful. The problem is a contract that does neither clearly, or a handbook that says one thing while the rota does another. Pick one, write it down, and apply it to everybody.

The pro rata trap

Part-timers need more care than anyone else. A bank holiday that falls on a day they do not normally work cannot be counted against their holiday. Their statutory minimum is pro rata: someone working three days a week gets at least 16.8 days, which is 5.6 weeks of three-day weeks.

Say someone works Wednesday to Friday. Easter Monday is not their day, so it cannot come out of their allowance. If you subtract all the bank holidays from a full-time figure and hand the remainder to part-timers, you will under-give some of them.

Also watch the leave year. If it runs from 1 April to 31 March, it can hold a different number of bank holidays depending on where Easter falls. In a year with more of them, an "included" model eats more of the pot.

What if I want to close on a bank holiday?

You can, and many small businesses do. Can you make staff use their holiday for it?

• If the bank holiday falls on a day the person usually works, you can require them to take it as holiday, but only if the contract says so or you have given notice.
• For any other holiday you require them to take, the notice has to be twice as long as the number of days you are asking for.
• Significant changes to holiday terms need a formal contract-change process. You cannot just announce them.

Do not leave it to the week before. If you plan to close over a bank holiday weekend, tell the team when you publish the rota for the surrounding weeks, and check that anyone who has already booked those days is not counted twice.

What about extra, one-off bank holidays?

Sometimes a government adds a one-off bank holiday at short notice, for a royal occasion or a national event. Employers are not obliged to give the day off or pay extra for it.

Whether a surprise day counts depends on your contract. If it refers to bank holidays generally, an extra one may be covered. If it names the days, it may not. Decide early, tell staff, and apply the same rule next time.

How do you choose a bank holiday policy?

There is no right answer, only trade-offs. Most small teams end up with one of these, or a mix.

Premium rate

A higher hourly rate for bank holiday shifts. It is simple to explain and staff like it. It also gets expensive on a long weekend, and once it is in a contract it is hard to take back.

Time off in lieu

The person works the day and takes another one later. Easier on cash, harder on the rota, because the day owed still has to be covered. Write down who is owed what, or it turns into an argument in December.

A fair rotation

Nobody likes losing every bank holiday, so share them out. Keep a simple count of who has worked which ones this year, and ask the people with the fewest first. It costs nothing, though it only works if the count is kept.

Volunteers first

Ask who wants the shift before you assign it. A student saving up or someone without family plans may be glad to take it, especially with a premium. A worker can also ask to work a bank holiday and take another day instead, but you are not obliged to agree.

A quick way to cost a bank holiday shift

Use your own numbers, not an industry average. For each bank holiday you trade:

1. Take the hours you need covered and the hourly rate you pay each person.
2. Add any premium your contract or policy gives.
3. Add the cost of any TOIL day, since someone is paid to be off and someone else to cover it.
4. Compare the total with the sales you expect on the day.

To show the arithmetic, a six-hour shift paid at the 21-and-over minimum of £12.71 comes to £76.26. That is the absolute floor for one person. Your real figure sits above it, plus whatever premium you have promised. Doing this for the whole day tells you quickly whether opening is worth it or whether a shorter day makes more sense.

Which dates fall in 2027?

Bank holidays differ across the UK, so rota from the right list (GOV.UK).

England and Wales: 1 January, 26 March (Good Friday), 29 March (Easter Monday), 3 May, 31 May, 30 August, 27 December (substitute for Christmas Day) and 28 December (substitute for Boxing Day).

Scotland: 1 January, 4 January, 26 March, 3 May, 31 May, 2 August, 30 November, 27 December and 28 December. There is no Easter Monday.

Northern Ireland: the England and Wales dates, plus 17 March and 12 July. There is no 2 January holiday.

If you have sites in more than one nation, keep a separate list for each. Staff in Edinburgh and Belfast will not thank you for putting them down for the wrong day.

Keep the records

Keep records of who took which bank holiday and what they were paid for working it. Check the current Acas guidance on how long holiday records must be kept. A note on the rota and a clean approved timesheet do most of the job.

Regular overtime that someone receives as a matter of course may also need to be included in their holiday pay. Acas has a guide on calculating holiday pay if your team's hours move around.

Putting it on the rota

Decide your policy once, write it into the contract, and publish the bank holiday rota early. If you are also checking rest gaps over a long weekend, the rest breaks and rota rules guide covers the other half.

Wavro is rota software for small UK shift teams. It keeps time off, clock-ins and approved timesheets alongside the rota, so a bank holiday question has a record behind it. You can try it on the live demo without signing up.

This is general information, not legal advice. Contracts, nations and individual circumstances differ, so for a specific situation take advice or speak to Acas.