Holiday records: the rule every UK employer now has to follow

This is general information about UK rules, checked on the date above. It is not legal advice, and rules change. For a decision that matters, check the sources below or ask a qualified adviser.

Many small employers still track holiday in a diary, a shared calendar or a group chat. That used to be untidy. Since April 2026 it can also be a legal problem, because employers now have a specific duty to keep holiday records and to hold on to them for six years.

The short version

• From 6 April 2026, employers must keep records that show they have met the rules on annual leave and holiday pay.¹
• Those records must be kept for six years from the date they were made.¹
• You can use any format that is reasonable, including a spreadsheet.²
• If an employer cannot prove it has holiday records, it could be a criminal offence.²

What the law now says

The change comes from section 35 of the Employment Rights Act 2025. It adds a new regulation to the Working Time Regulations 1998, which requires an employer to keep records “adequate to show” that it has complied with the rules on leave and holiday pay, and to keep them “for six years from the date on which they were made”.¹ The commencement regulations brought this section into force on 6 April 2026.³

The government’s guidance for businesses says the same in plainer words: employers must keep adequate records to show they have complied with holiday pay and entitlement rules, and retain them for six years.⁴

What you need to record

Acas, the independent workplace adviser, lists what employers must record:²

• holiday taken
• holiday carried over from previous years
• holiday pay
• any payments in lieu of holiday, such as pay for unused holiday when someone leaves

For holiday pay, you must also give details of what is included, for example bonuses or commission.² This is the part most diaries and calendars miss. Knowing that Sam took three days off in June is not enough on its own. You also need to be able to show what Sam was paid for them, and how you worked it out.

You do not need special software

This is worth saying plainly, because some suppliers will imply otherwise. The law lets you keep these records “in such manner and format as the employer reasonably thinks fit”.¹ Acas gives both an online management system and a spreadsheet as examples, and points out that your payroll system may already hold some of this.² Whatever you use, you need to make sure it includes everything the law requires.

Software starts to earn its place when a spreadsheet gets hard to trust. Common warning signs are:

• several managers each keeping their own copy
• staff asking how many days they have left, and nobody being certain
• holiday pay worked out separately from holiday taken, so the two cannot be matched up
• someone leaving, and the file going with them

What happens if you do not keep records

Acas says that if an employer cannot prove it has holiday records, it could be a criminal offence, and that the Fair Work Agency will be given enforcement rights. It says the maximum penalty is likely to be unlimited fines, and other action might include demands for underpayments of holiday pay and additional financial penalties.²

A worker who thinks records are not being kept should raise it informally first, and can then raise a formal grievance.² So a missing record may first come to light through one of your own staff, often when a dispute about pay has already started.

Six years is longer than most people expect

Records must be kept for six years from the date they were made, not from when someone leaves.¹ A note made today has to survive until November 2032. In practice, that means a few simple habits:

1. Keep the records somewhere that outlasts any one person. A file on a manager’s laptop is not safe.
2. Back them up. A record you have lost is a record you cannot show.
3. Keep leavers’ records. It is easy to delete a person’s data when they leave, but holiday records still have to be kept for the full period.
4. Limit who can see them. Acas notes that records must be kept in line with UK GDPR.² The Information Commissioner’s Office has separate guidance on keeping employment records.⁵

A simple way to get this right

If you want to stay on a spreadsheet, make one sheet per leave year, keep one row per person, and include these columns at the least: entitlement, carried over, each period taken, pay for each period, what that pay included, and any payment in lieu. Lock past years so they cannot be changed by accident. That is our practical suggestion rather than a legal format, so check it against your own contracts.

If you would rather not maintain that by hand, a holiday system can create the record as a side effect of normal use. When someone requests leave and a manager approves it, the dates, the balance and the approval are all stored together. You can try how that feels in the live demo on our HR and rota page.

Check these three things this week

1. Could you show, today, what holiday one member of staff took last year and what they were paid for it?
2. Does your record show what was included in holiday pay, such as commission?
3. If the person who keeps the records left tomorrow, would you still have them?

If any answer is no, that is the place to start. If you are also unsure how much holiday people should be getting, read our guide to UK holiday entitlement.