In England and Wales there are, generally, eight bank holidays in every calendar year: New Years’ Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, two May bank holidays, August bank holiday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. We have some years where we get a ‘bonus’ bank holiday. In recent years this has included the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the coronation of King Charles. But, if nothing special is happening, we generally have eight.

Most of our bank holidays are ‘fixed’ in terms of when they fall each year. The exception is the two Easter bank holidays which move around as the timing of Easter changes.  Easter fell in March last year, but this year it isn’t until mid-April. This means that there will only be seven bank holidays between the period 1st April 2024 and 31st March 2025.

This could have an impact on employers whose holiday year runs from 1st April-31st March. If workers are only entitled to statutory minimum holiday then employers might be legally obligated to give them an extra day of holiday.

Who will have to give their workers an extra day of annual leave?

Full-time employees are entitled to a statutory minimum holiday entitlement of at least 28 days. This number includes any bank holidays. The concern here is that, for the holiday year 1st April 2024-31st March 2025, some workers might receive only 27 days, owing to the fact that there are only 7 bank holidays in this window. This would be a breach of the Working Time Regulations 1998.

Everything depends on how the holiday clauses in the contracts of these workers are structured:

  1. If the contract states that they are entitled to 28 days of holiday each holiday year including bank holidays, then there is no issue. The worker will effectively take 7 banks holidays off and have a further 21 days they are able to take at a time of their choosing.
  1. If the contract states that they are entitled to 20 days of holiday ‘plus bank holidays’ (or similar wording) then there is an issue as there will only be 7 bank holidays falling within the holiday year for 2024-2025. The workers will be receiving 27 days off in total, below the statutory minimum of 28 days. For these workers, employers should consider making sure that they are offered the opportunity to take a further day of leave before 31st

What is the risk?

If, following an audit of your contracts of employment, you discover that you engage workers who are at risk of receiving less than statutory minimum holiday because of this anomaly then you could either:

  • Rectify the issue by offering the employee an additional day of holiday to be taken before 31st March, making it clear that the offer is for the 2024-2025 holiday year only to reflect the timing of the easter break; or
  • Do nothing and wait to be challenged.

There is a risk if you ‘do nothing’. Workers could bring claims for unlawful deductions from wages for underpayment of holiday. The fact that there were nine bank holidays in 2023-2024 such that the employees received more than their minimum entitlement then will have no bearing on this. The tribunal will only look at the holiday year in question. You will have underpaid.

Summary

This issue will not impact everyone. HR should carry-out the following audit to assess risk:

  • Check your holiday year for all employees.
  • If any holiday years run from 1st April – 31st March then check how many employees are on statutory minimum holiday entitlement.
  • Check how this is expressed in their contracts. Remember, it is only if the holiday clause is structured to state a number of days ‘plus bank holidays’ that you may have an issue.
  • Once you have assessed the risk, consider whether you are going to go with the low risk option (giving each impacted employee an extra day off) or the higher risk option (doing nothing and seeing if you are challenged).

Easter falls in April again in 2026, so it will be back to normal for the 2025/26 holiday year thank goodness!