How Many UK Bank Holidays Are There Each Year?

Bank holidays can feel straightforward until you’re the one running payroll, staffing shifts, managing customer expectations, and trying to avoid a last-minute dispute about who’s entitled to what.

If you’re asking how many bank holidays there are each year in the UK, the answer depends on where your business (and your employees) are based - and what’s written into your employment contracts and policies.

This guide breaks down the usual bank holiday position across the UK, what “bank holidays” actually mean from an employment law perspective, and the practical steps you can take to handle them consistently (and legally) in your business.

What Counts As A Bank Holiday In The UK?

A bank holiday is a public holiday officially recognised under UK law. They’re commonly treated as “standard days off” by many businesses, but there’s an important point for employers:

Bank holidays aren’t automatically extra paid leave on top of statutory holiday entitlement.

In practice, bank holidays sit at the intersection of:

• Public holiday dates (set by government and varying across the UK), and
• Your employees’ contractual holiday entitlement (which may or may not include bank holidays).

Why Employers Should Treat Bank Holidays As A Contract And Policy Issue

From a small business perspective, bank holidays impact:

• Whether you’re open or closed
• Staffing levels (especially for hospitality, retail, care, logistics, and customer support)
• Payroll and holiday calculations
• How you manage part-time employees and shift workers fairly
• How you avoid inconsistency (which can quickly become a grievance risk)

That’s why it helps to be crystal clear in your Employment Contract and policies about whether bank holidays are included within annual leave or granted as additional days off.

How Many Bank Holidays Are There Each Year In England, Wales, Scotland And Northern Ireland?

If you’re searching for how many bank holidays there are each year, here’s the “usual” baseline in a normal year (not counting one-off events like royal occasions).

England And Wales: Usually 8 Bank Holidays

In England and Wales, there are usually 8 bank holidays:

• New Year’s Day
• Good Friday
• Easter Monday
• Early May bank holiday
• Spring bank holiday
• Summer bank holiday
• Christmas Day
• Boxing Day

Note: If a bank holiday falls on a weekend, there is usually a “substitute” bank holiday on the next weekday. The exact observed day is set officially (and can differ from what a business chooses to do operationally), so it’s worth checking the published dates when planning rotas and payroll.

Scotland: 9 Statutory Bank Holidays, But Practice Can Vary

Scotland has 9 statutory bank holidays, but the days actually observed can vary by local area and by employer. Some are similar to England/Wales, and Scotland commonly includes 2 January as a bank holiday.

Because Scotland’s observed holidays can differ between workplaces, it’s important to check what your contracts say, what your policy provides, and what your business has historically done.

Northern Ireland: 10 Statutory Bank Holidays, With Additional Dates

Northern Ireland has 10 statutory bank holidays. Alongside common UK-wide holidays, Northern Ireland usually includes additional dates (including St Patrick’s Day and the Battle of the Boyne/Orangemen’s Day).

One-Off Bank Holidays: Plan For The Unexpected

Some years include an extra bank holiday for a special event (for example, royal jubilees, state funerals, coronations, or other nationally designated days).

For employers, the key question isn’t just “does this date exist?” - it’s:

• Is your business closed on that day?
• Are employees entitled to it as paid leave under their contract, or do they take it from their existing holiday allowance?
• If you operate across the UK, do you need different treatment for different regions?

This is where careful drafting around annual leave and public holidays can save you a lot of stress later.

Do You Have To Give Employees Bank Holidays Off?

Many business owners assume they must give bank holidays off as paid leave. In most cases, that’s not legally required.

The Legal Baseline: Statutory Annual Leave (Not “Bank Holidays”)

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, most workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year (pro-rated for part-time staff). For a full-time employee working 5 days per week, that’s 28 days.

Those 28 days can be structured in different ways, depending on your business model, including:

• 28 days inclusive of bank holidays (common in many workplaces), or
• 20 days plus bank holidays (also common, and often perceived as “more generous” because bank holidays are additional).

The key is clarity. If your contract says holiday is inclusive of bank holidays, then bank holidays generally come out of that overall annual leave pot (subject to how your roster works).

Can You Require Staff To Work On Bank Holidays?

In many sectors, bank holidays are normal working days - especially if you serve the public.

Whether you can require staff to work a bank holiday depends on:

• their employment contract (including working days/hours and rostering terms)
• any workplace policies on time off and scheduling
• how you’ve treated bank holidays historically (consistency matters)
• whether any discrimination issues could arise from the way you allocate leave or shifts

Even where you’re contractually entitled to roster someone on a bank holiday, it’s good practice to give as much notice as possible and apply your approach consistently across the team.

Do You Have To Pay Extra For Working A Bank Holiday?

There’s no general legal rule that employees must be paid extra just because they work on a bank holiday.

Extra pay for bank holidays usually comes from:

• the employment contract
• a workplace policy or custom and practice (i.e. what you’ve consistently done in the past)
• a collective agreement (where applicable)

So if your business promises “double pay on bank holidays” (even informally) and you’ve consistently applied it for a long time, changing that later can create risk. If you want to change your approach, it’s sensible to get advice before implementing changes.

How Bank Holidays Interact With Part-Time Staff, Shift Workers And “Non-Working Days”

This is where bank holidays get tricky for employers - and where many small businesses accidentally create unfair outcomes.

When A Bank Holiday Falls On Someone’s Normal Non-Working Day

Say you have a part-time employee who works Monday to Wednesday, and a bank holiday falls on a Friday. They haven’t “missed out” in the sense that it was never their working day - but they also shouldn’t be disadvantaged overall compared to a full-time Monday-to-Friday employee.

This is why many employers structure holiday entitlements as a total number of days/hours and let employees request leave from that total, rather than automatically granting bank holidays.

If you’re dealing with this issue in your business, the scenario is covered in more detail in non-working day falls on a bank holiday.

Shift Workers And 24/7 Operations

If your business operates on rotating rosters (e.g. security, care, hospitality, manufacturing), it often doesn’t make sense to treat bank holidays as “automatic leave days”. Instead, you may:

• include bank holidays in the employee’s overall annual leave entitlement, and
• rostering continues as normal, with employees booking leave when they want time off.

Where businesses go wrong is inconsistency - for example, giving day-shift staff bank holidays off as paid leave but expecting night-shift staff to work without any equivalent benefit. That kind of split can quickly become a morale issue, and in some cases a legal risk.

Pro-Rating Entitlements Properly

Pro-rating holiday for part-time staff isn’t just a “nice-to-have” - it’s essential for fairness and to reduce the risk of claims. If you’re unsure how to calculate holiday correctly (especially prevention of rounding errors or inconsistent treatment), it’s worth reviewing your contracts and policies.

Also keep in mind: statutory leave is a minimum. If you offer more generous leave, that’s fine - you just need to clearly set out the terms.

How To Handle Bank Holidays In Contracts, Policies And Rosters

Bank holidays are one of those “small” issues that can cause disproportionate headaches if you don’t set expectations early.

The goal for employers is simple: clarity, consistency, and compliance.

1. Decide What Your Business Approach Will Be

Start with your operational reality:

• Are you open on bank holidays?
• Do you need minimum staffing levels?
• Is the bank holiday a peak trading day or a quiet day?
• Do you have clients/customers who expect coverage?

Once you’ve decided your approach, you can build it into your legal documents and processes.

2. Put The Rules In Writing (And Keep Them Consistent)

Your contracts and policies should answer questions like:

• Is holiday entitlement inclusive or exclusive of bank holidays?
• Can employees be required to work bank holidays?
• How much notice will you give for bank holiday rotas?
• Is there enhanced pay, or time off in lieu, and when does it apply?

Many businesses cover day-to-day leave administration in a staff handbook or workplace policy, while the contract sets the core entitlement and employer rights. If you rely on informal conversations, you risk misunderstandings and inconsistent treatment over time.

3. If You Need To Control When Leave Is Taken, Make Sure You Do It Properly

Employers often need to manage leave around operational demand - for example, you might not be able to approve everyone’s leave request around Easter or Christmas.

In many cases you can set rules around when annual leave is taken (subject to the contract and statutory notice requirements), but you need to approach this carefully. The practical boundaries are discussed in dictating holidays.

4. Check Your Working Time Compliance

Bank holiday working patterns can sometimes hide bigger compliance risks, especially if you’re short-staffed and employees regularly pick up additional shifts.

For example, if bank holidays lead to longer hours, fewer rest breaks, or back-to-back shifts, you’ll want to ensure you’re staying compliant with the Working Time Regulations - including maximum weekly hours, rest periods, and record-keeping where relevant.

5. Be Careful About “Custom And Practice”

Small businesses often evolve quickly. You might start by giving everyone bank holidays off, then later expand into weekend trading or take on contracts requiring coverage.

The risk is that if you’ve consistently given a particular benefit over time, employees may argue it has become an implied term (even if your contracts are vague).

If you need to change how bank holidays work in your business, it’s best to review:

• what the contract says
• how you’ve actually treated bank holidays in practice
• how you will consult and communicate changes

6. Make Sure Your Employment Contracts Support Your Business As You Grow

Bank holiday issues often show up when you hire your first employee, open a second location, or move from informal scheduling to a structured roster.

This is exactly why it helps to have a properly drafted Employment Contract that matches how your business actually operates - rather than relying on generic wording that assumes a Monday-to-Friday office model.

And if you have employees in different parts of the UK, consider whether you need location-specific contract wording (or at least a policy that clearly explains how bank holidays are handled in each region).

Key Takeaways

• In a typical year, the number of UK bank holidays depends on location: usually 8 in England and Wales, 9 statutory bank holidays in Scotland (with variation in what’s observed), and 10 statutory bank holidays in Northern Ireland (with occasional extra one-off bank holidays in some years).
• Employees don’t automatically have a legal right to paid time off specifically for bank holidays - the legal baseline is 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998.
• Whether bank holidays are taken off, paid, or worked will often come down to what your contracts and workplace policies say (and what you’ve done in practice historically).
• Be especially careful with part-time staff and shift workers, because bank holidays can create unfair outcomes if your approach isn’t pro-rated or consistently applied.
• If you need to roster employees on bank holidays or restrict leave around peak periods, it’s important to do it lawfully and clearly, and document the rules from day one.
• Clear contract wording and consistent policies reduce the risk of disputes, payroll errors, and accidental “custom and practice” entitlements forming over time.

If you’d like help getting your employment contracts and leave policies right (including how your business handles bank holidays), you can reach us at 08081347754 or team@sprintlaw.co.uk for a free, no-obligations chat.