Annual leave calendar
- Days' paid leave a year
- 28
- Days to book after bank holidays counted
- 28
- Carry-over allowed, days
- 5
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs you enter, by the method stated below it. The statutory figures the page names are read from GOV.UK and sourced: 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year for almost all workers, statutory entitlement limited to 28 days, bank holidays allowed to count inside it, and notice of at least twice the leave requested plus one day. Everything else is yours.
An annual leave calendar is the wall chart on the office wall: a column per person, a row per week, a colour for booked leave and a line through the bank holidays. It answers the two questions that matter in a small business, who is off this week and whether the shop can stay open, and it fails the moment someone books by text and nobody colours the square. This guide is about what a leave calendar has to carry to be trusted, and the free annual leave policy template on this site states the entitlement and the notice rule it runs on with no account.
Try the free annual leave calculator Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
The calendar runs on a policy: entitlement, bank holidays, carry-over
Before the first square is coloured the calendar needs the policy: how many weeks of leave the year gives on the statutory 5.6 floor, whether bank holidays count inside the entitlement, which an employer can choose (GOV.UK), and how many days can carry over. The policy template on this site states all three from your own figures.
Notice is a rule, not a favour
The general notice period for taking leave is at least twice as long as the leave a worker wants to take, plus one day, unless the contract says otherwise (GOV.UK). A calendar that accepts a request for next week with no rule leaves the shop short; the policy template works out the notice for a typical request so the rule is on paper.
Booked leave is a request with a status, and the balance follows
A square on the calendar should be a request that was approved, not a colour someone remembered to add. The paid plan keeps each request against the employee with its status, colours the chart from the approved ones, and shows the balance beside the name.
Annual leave calendar: common questions
What should an annual leave calendar show?
A column per employee, a row per week, the approved leave coloured, bank holidays marked, each person's balance, and the leave year's start and end. The policy template on this site states the entitlement, bank-holiday and carry-over rules it runs on; the paid plan draws the chart from approved requests.
Do bank holidays count as annual leave?
An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker's statutory annual leave (GOV.UK), so it depends on the contract. The policy template takes the number of bank holidays counted inside the entitlement and shows the days left to book after them.
How much notice should an employee give for holiday?
Under the general rule the notice is at least twice as long as the leave requested, plus one day: three days' notice for one day's leave, 21 days for ten. A contract can set a different rule. The policy template works out the notice for the request length you enter.
WallChartBook Pro
Keeping what you make
The arithmetic is free forever. Pro turns it into the wall chart: every employee with their entitlement, every request against them, the balance that updates as leave is taken, your business name on the policy, and a clean export when payroll or the accountant asks.
- Download as PDF
- No WallChartBook watermark
- Save every employee's entitlement and reopen it later
- Your business name and logo on it
- Export the whole wall chart in one go
- Leave-approved and leave-year-end reminders emailed to your team
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
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Cite or embed this figure
On the worked example, a five-day week on the UK statutory 5.6 weeks is 28 days' paid leave a year, none of it counted against bank holidays, five days of carry-over allowed, and a ten-day request needing 21 days' notice under the general rule.
Annual leave policy template (Days' paid leave a year): 28, WallChartBook, worked example.
Cite as: "Annual leave calendar, WallChartBook", updated 2026-09-03, https://wallchartbook.com/annual-leave-calendar/.