Holiday pay for pub staff in 2026: casual shifts, Christmas temps, bank holidays and the new six-year records rule

Most bar staff on casual shifts count as irregular-hours workers, and for them holiday builds up at 12.07% of the hours they work. You can either let them take it as paid time off or add it to every hour as rolled-up holiday pay, which on the £12.71 National Living Wage is £1.53 an hour, so £14.24 all in. Bank holidays carry no legal premium, you're allowed to stop people booking leave over Christmas if you give proper notice, and from 6 April 2026 you have to keep holiday and holiday pay records for six years. The one that catches pubs out every January is the Christmas temp who leaves owed holiday nobody's paid.

Holiday pay isn't the bit of the job anyone gets into the trade for. But it's money you owe whether you've worked it out or not, and the rules for casual staff changed for leave years starting from 1 April 2024, so plenty of pubs are still running the old way. This is the plain-English version for a pub, with the sums at this year's rates.

Is your staff member "irregular hours" or not?

It matters, because the rules split in two.

Type	What it means in a pub	How holiday works
Regular hours, full or part time	Same shifts most weeks, say Thursday to Saturday nights every week	5.6 weeks a year, worked out from their usual week. Three days a week means 16.8 days. No rolled-up pay allowed
Irregular hours	Hours change from one pay period to the next. Most casual and zero-hours bar staff	Builds up at 12.07% of hours worked each pay period. Rolled-up holiday pay allowed
Part-year	Weeks of the year where they don't work and aren't paid, like students home for Christmas and summer	Same as irregular hours

Full-timers top out at 28 days. Someone working six days a week is still only entitled to 28 days of statutory leave. An employer can count bank holidays as part of that 5.6 weeks, and most pubs do.

Two ways to pay casuals

For irregular-hours and part-year workers you can choose, as long as their leave year started on or after 1 April 2024.

Accrue and take. Each pay period they build up 12.07% of the hours they worked, rounded up to the next hour if it's half an hour or more. GOV.UK's own example: 30 hours in a weekly pay period earns 3.621 hours, so 4 hours of leave, which they can take from the next pay period. When they take it, you pay them their average pay over the previous 52 weeks they were paid.

Rolled-up. You add 12.07% to every hour's pay, so the holiday is paid as they go and nothing builds up. Simpler for a bar where people come and go. They're still entitled to take the time off. It's just already been paid for.

Rolled-up is not allowed for regular-hours staff. If someone does the same three shifts every week, you can't put "£14.24 an hour including holiday" on their contract.

What it costs at 2026 rates

Rate from April 2026	Hourly rate	Holiday at 12.07%	Rolled-up hourly total
21 and over (National Living Wage)	£12.71	£1.53	£14.24
18 to 20	£10.85	£1.31	£12.16
Under 18 and apprentices	£8.00	£0.97	£8.97

Holiday pay is pay, so employer's National Insurance applies to it the same as wages. For staff 21 and over that's 15% on earnings above £96 a week. For under-21s (category M) the employer rate is 0% on earnings up to £967 a week, so most young bar staff cost you no employer NI at all. My National Living Wage guide builds up the true cost of a bar hour, holiday and NI included, and what it does to your GP.

The Christmas temp

This is the one I'd get straight now, before you take anyone on for December. Say you take on an extra pair of hands, 21 or over, for 25 hours a week over five weeks, paid weekly, and you're using accrue-and-take.

Step	Figure
Holiday earned each week (25 x 12.07%)	3.02 hours, rounds to 3
Over five weeks	15 hours
Value at £12.71	£190.65

Nobody takes holiday in December in a pub, so in January they leave with 15 hours untaken. Payment in place of holiday is only allowed when someone leaves, and when they do, you must pay it, even if you've dismissed them for gross misconduct. So that £190.65 goes in their final pay. Rolled-up gets you to almost the same place, about £190 spread across the five weeks instead of in one lump. Either way, budget it into the cost of Christmas staffing rather than finding it in January. My Christmas and New Year guide has the stock side of the season.

Can you stop people taking holiday over Christmas?

Yes. GOV.UK says employers can restrict when leave is taken, for example at busy periods, and can tell staff to take leave on set days, like Christmas or bank holidays. Put it in the contract or your staff handbook so nobody finds out in November.

The notice rules, unless the contract says otherwise:

• A worker asking for leave gives notice of at least twice the leave plus one day. So three days' notice for one day off.
• If you're refusing or cancelling leave, you give notice of at least as long as the leave plus one day. So 11 days' notice to refuse a 10-day request.
• If you're telling staff to take leave on particular days, the notice is at least twice the length of the leave.

A rule that's written down and applied to everyone the same is fair. A refusal sprung on someone a week before is the kind of thing that ends in a dispute.

Bank holidays and Christmas Day

There's no legal right to time off on a bank holiday, and no legal right to extra pay for working one. Christmas Day and Boxing Day are the same in law. If you pay double time or time and a half, that's your choice or your contract's, and plenty of pubs do it because it's the only way to get the shifts covered. Just be consistent, and if it's in the contract, pay it.

One thing that does catch people out: holiday pay is worked out on "normal" pay, which includes regular overtime and commission, not just the basic hourly rate. If someone always works the paid extra hours over a busy run, that can count.

The new records rule

From 6 April 2026, employers must keep detailed records of annual leave and holiday pay for at least six years. For a pub that means, for every member of staff: the hours they worked each pay period, the holiday they built up, the holiday they took, and what you paid for it, including any rolled-up amounts.

Most of that already sits in your payroll if you use a payroll service. The bit that's often missing is a reliable record of hours, because bar shifts run over, swap and get covered at short notice. If the hours are wrong, the holiday is wrong.

If you're using StockTap, its Rota and clock-in screens give you a record of who was rota'd and when they clocked in and out. It doesn't work out holiday pay for you, so the 12.07% still happens in your payroll, but it gives you the hours to work it from. On paper, a signed timesheet per shift does the same job.

My take

None of this is optional and none of it is hard once it's set up. Decide accrue-and-take or rolled-up for your casuals, write the Christmas leave rule into the handbook now, price the holiday into your temp staff before you hire them, and keep the hours properly. The pubs that get stung are the ones paying £12.71 an hour and thinking that's the cost.

This is my plain-English read of the GOV.UK guidance, not legal advice. ACAS has its own guidance and a helpline if you've got a tricky one.

Common questions

How is holiday pay worked out for casual bar staff?

Most casual bar staff are irregular-hours workers. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, they build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours worked in each pay period, rounded up to the next hour if it's half an hour or more. When they take it, it's paid at their average pay over the previous 52 paid weeks.

Can a pub pay rolled-up holiday pay?

Yes, for irregular-hours and part-year workers whose leave year started on or after 1 April 2024. You add 12.07% to each hour's pay, which on the £12.71 National Living Wage is £1.53, so £14.24 an hour. It isn't allowed for staff on regular hours.

Do pub staff get paid extra for working bank holidays or Christmas Day?

Not by law. There's no legal right to a day off or extra pay on a bank holiday, including Christmas Day. Any premium is down to the employer or the contract. Employers can also count bank holidays as part of the 5.6 weeks' statutory leave.

How long must a pub keep holiday pay records?

From 6 April 2026, employers must keep detailed records of annual leave and holiday pay for at least six years from the date they were made.