Leaver holiday calculator (final pay, UK)
What a leaver has accrued to their last day, what's left to pay out - or what they've overtaken and whether you can deduct it.
The leaver
Accrued untaken statutory holiday MUST be paid in the final pay - no contract clause needed. Recovering OVERTAKEN holiday is the reverse: a deduction from final pay is only lawful with a written agreement (contract clause or signed consent). Taxed as normal earnings.
A leaver's holiday is settled in the final pay: accrued entitlement to the leaving date, minus days taken. Underused leave must be paid out - that's automatic law. Overtaken leave can only be clawed back if the contract (or a written agreement) says so.
How do you calculate a leaver's holiday entitlement?
Annual entitlement × the fraction of the leave year worked. Someone on 28 days leaving 7 months in has accrued 28 × 7⁄12 = 16.33, normally rounded up to 16.5 days. If they've taken 12, you owe 4.5 days in the final pay; if they'd taken 19, they're 2.5 days over.
Do employers have to pay out unused holiday?
Yes - accrued untaken statutory leave must be paid on termination (gov.uk), including any leave carried over after sickness (holiday keeps accruing while someone is off sick - see UK annual leave explained). Contractual extra days follow the contract - most policies pay them out the same way.
Can you deduct overtaken holiday from final pay?
| Scenario | What happens |
|---|---|
| Accrued > taken | pay the balance in final pay - mandatory |
| Taken > accrued, clause in contract | deduct at the agreed rate |
| Taken > accrued, NO written agreement | no lawful deduction - the days are written off |
That third row is the expensive one - a one-line clause prevents it. Working the other direction (a starter's entitlement), use the pro-rata holiday calculator; a leaver's notice costs live in the notice pay calculator and redundancy cost calculator.
This calculator applies the statutory rules as published and shows its working, but it cannot know your contracts, your policies or anything unusual about the case. Treat the figure as a starting point, and take advice on anything contested or expensive.
Offboarding without the arithmetic
CoDash tracks balances all year, so a leaver's final-pay holiday line is already sitting on their record - offboarding checklist included.