Holiday
Holiday that builds up while you are on maternity leave
A year away from work still earns a year of holiday: how much, how to use it before or after the leave, and what happens across two leave years.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
Holiday continues to build up throughout maternity leave, ordinary and additional, as GOV.UK and nidirect both confirm; the same is true of adoption, paternity and shared parental leave. A mother on a five-day week who takes the full 52 weeks therefore earns the whole statutory 28 days for that period, and any extra contractual days her contract gives, even though she is not at work. Because she cannot take the leave while on maternity leave, the law lets her carry statutory leave she was unable to take into the next leave year. Many women add their accrued holiday to the end of maternity leave, which delays the return to work at full pay, or use it before the leave starts. Bank holidays that fall during the leave are part of this: if the contract counts them inside the allowance, they are added to the holiday to be taken later. Keeping-in-touch days do not reduce the holiday that has built up.
Holiday that builds up while you are on maternity leave
Holiday accrued during the leave
31.0 days
| Statutory part (5.6 weeks a year) | 28.0 |
| Contractual part | 3.0 |
Bank holidays during the leave are part of this if your contract counts them in your allowance.
A year away, worked through
Consider an employee in England on a five-day week, with a calendar leave year and the statutory 28 days including bank holidays. Her maternity leave runs from 2 November 2026 to 31 October 2027. During those 52 weeks, 8 bank holidays fall, which she does not take. Across the two leave years the leave touches, she keeps building up holiday the whole time.
- Leave year 2026: she works until the end of October and takes, say, 18 days. The remaining 10 days of 2026 could not be taken because she was on maternity leave, so they can be carried into 2027.
- Leave year 2027: she is on maternity leave until 31 October 2027, and accrues the full 28 days for 2027.
- On her return she therefore has 38 days, which she can partly add to the end of the maternity leave, with agreement on dates.
The exact numbers depend on your contract’s leave year, on what was taken before the leave and on any extra days your contract adds, which follow its own carry-over clause, but the principle does not change: the time on maternity leave counts as if you had been at work for holiday purposes.
Carrying it over: the legal basis
Regulation 13(14) of the Working Time Regulations provides that where a worker cannot take some or all of their regulation 13 leave because of a period of statutory leave, they can carry the untaken leave into the following leave year; regulation 13A(7A) does the same for the additional 1.6 weeks. Statutory leave covers maternity, adoption, paternity and shared parental leave, among other family leave. GOV.UK sums it up for workers: if you cannot take your leave because you are on family-related leave, you can carry it over into the next year. The carry-over guide compares this with the more limited rules after sickness.
Before the leave starts
Taking holiday before maternity leave is equally possible, provided you give notice and your employer agrees the dates. Some women use it to finish work earlier without starting maternity leave, and therefore without starting the 39 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay, which keeps more paid weeks for after the birth. Be careful in the last four weeks before the expected week of childbirth: an absence for a pregnancy-related reason in that period starts maternity leave automatically, whatever was planned (maternity leave dates).
Irregular hours and part-year workers
For workers whose holiday accrues at 12.07 % of hours worked in Great Britain, regulation 15C makes holiday build up during statutory leave too, using the average weekly hours worked in the 52 weeks before the leave began. If the employer uses rolled-up holiday pay, regulation 16A requires a payment for each pay period of the leave equal to the average rolled-up pay of the previous 52 weeks.
Keeping in touch and shared parental leave
Working up to 10 keeping-in-touch days during maternity leave does not end the leave and does not affect the holiday you are building up (KIT days). Partners on shared parental leave accrue holiday in the same way; when the leave is taken in blocks, holiday can be booked in the weeks between them with the normal notice.
Pay for the holiday you take afterwards
Holiday taken after maternity leave is paid at your normal holiday rate, not at the rate of Statutory Maternity Pay. For the first four weeks of statutory leave in Great Britain, that rate includes regular overtime and commission, averaged over the last 52 weeks in which you were paid; weeks in which no pay was received are skipped and earlier weeks used instead, back to 104 weeks. A pay rise awarded while you were away applies to the holiday pay too, because your terms and conditions continue during the leave. If payroll pays the holiday at the SMP rate by mistake, ask for the difference; the holiday pay calculator gives the figure to quote.
Northern Ireland
nidirect states that holiday continues to accrue throughout ordinary and additional maternity leave and paternity and adoption leave in Northern Ireland, and the arrangements above for using it before or after the leave apply in the same way.