April 2026 Holiday Record-Keeping Duty

Before April 2026, there was no general statutory duty on UK employers to keep specific holiday records. The WTR 1998 required employers to keep adequate records to demonstrate compliance with the working time limits (the 48-hour weekly cap, the rest-break rules), but holiday-specific records were a payroll convention rather than a stand-alone legal duty.

This produced an evidential mismatch in tribunal claims. A worker who believed their holiday pay was wrong needed to prove the underpayment. The employer's payroll records were the natural evidence, but the worker had no statutory right to see them. Subject Access Requests under data protection law could provide some information, but the records were often partial.

Section 35 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 closes that gap. It inserts a new regulation 16B into the Working Time Regulations 1998, effective 6 April 2026, requiring employers to keep records adequate to show they have complied with their annual leave obligations. Enforcement falls to the new Fair Work Agency, which launches on 7 April 2026.

Regulation 16B does not set out a fixed list or a prescribed format. The test is that the records must be adequate to show whether the employer has complied with the annual leave entitlements and the related pay requirements in the Working Time Regulations 1998. The provisions the records must evidence are:

• Regulation 13(1): the four weeks of statutory annual leave.
• Regulation 13A(1): the additional 1.6 weeks (taking the total to 5.6 weeks).
• Regulation 15B(2): the accrual rules for irregular-hours and part-year workers (the 12.07% method).
• Regulation 16(1): the right to be paid for annual leave when it is taken.
• The related pay and payment-on-termination requirements in regulations 14 and 15E.

The regulation expressly says the records may be created, maintained and kept "in such manner and format as the employer reasonably thinks fit". There is no requirement for a particular template, software, or layout. In practice, the payroll and HR records most employers already keep, entitlement, leave taken, accrual balances and holiday pay, will usually satisfy the duty, provided they are kept for six years from the date each record is made.

Failing to keep adequate annual leave records is a criminal offence under the Working Time Regulations 1998 as amended, punishable by an unlimited fine on conviction. The duty itself, and the offence, are in force from 6 April 2026. Enforcement of holiday rights, including the record-keeping duty, sits with the new Fair Work Agency, but its active holiday-pay enforcement powers are being phased in: the FWA's first-year strategic steer (published 7 April 2026) states it will prepare to commence holiday-pay enforcement in 2027, so day-one FWA penalty notices for record-keeping should not be assumed.

Where the Fair Work Agency finds underpaid holiday, it can require the employer to repay the worker and impose a financial penalty on top. Separately, in Employment Tribunal claims for underpaid holiday pay, the absence of records has an evidential effect: the tribunal can prefer the worker's calculation where the employer cannot produce the records to disprove it.

The duty does not give workers a new right to demand the records on a fixed timetable. What it does do is guarantee the records exist. A worker who suspects their holiday pay is wrong can request their personal data through a Subject Access Request (the employer must respond within about one month) or obtain the records through disclosure in a tribunal claim. Because the records must now be adequate and retained for six years, that evidence should be available rather than missing.

For workers on rolled-up holiday pay, the records should show the 12.07% line item on each payslip alongside the hours worked. A mismatch between hours worked × 12.07% × hourly rate and the rolled-up pay shown is recoverable. For workers on the 52-week reference period, the records should support the calculation of average weekly pay for each leave week. Errors in either calculation are common and now more straightforward to evidence.

For workers on the standard 5.6-week entitlement with fixed hours, the records should show the entitlement, leave taken, and balance. Discrepancies are less common but do appear, particularly around carry-over, sickness, family leave, and termination calculations.

Most employers using mainstream payroll and HR software already capture the underlying data: entitlement, leave taken, accrual balances and holiday pay. The main change is the formal six-year retention requirement and the fact that inadequate records are now a criminal matter rather than a purely civil one. Employers should confirm their systems retain holiday records for six years from creation and can produce a worker-specific view when needed.

For employers using bespoke or legacy systems, the gap is more likely to be retention and retrievability than the underlying calculations. Because there is no prescribed format, the practical task is making sure the records are complete enough to show compliance with regulations 13(1), 13A(1), 15B(2) and 16(1), and that they are not discarded before the six years are up.

HR and payroll teams should also expect more worker queries about holiday calculations as awareness of the duty grows. Being able to produce clear, individual records quickly reduces both legal risk (enforcement by the Fair Work Agency, adverse inference in tribunal) and reputational risk.