Request to carry over holiday form

If, at your discretion, you occasionally allow employees to carry over their unused annual leave entitlement from one holiday year to the next, you can ask them to first complete our request to carry over holiday form.

No contractual right

Our Holidays Policy is clear that employees must use all of their annual leave entitlement by the last day of each holiday year, and they may not carry their holiday entitlement forward into the next one unless there are exceptional circumstances and it is approved in writing in advance by their line manager, or unless they have the statutory right to do so. Our Request to Carry Over Holiday Form means the employee can make a formal written request to carry over which can then either be approved or declined by their manager. As for when there might there be exceptional circumstances, each case will turn on its own facts and you just need to ensure you’re treating everyone fairly. The statutory exceptions, where you must permit carry forward of annual leave, include where the employee has been unable to take some or all of their annual leave entitlement due to being absent on:

• sick leave – they are entitled to carry over up to four weeks’ annual leave and they have 18 months from the end of the holiday year in which it accrued to take it
• maternity or other family-related statutory leave - they are entitled to carry over up to 5.6 weeks’ annual leave and must take it by end of the following holiday year.

In addition, employees can carry over up to four weeks’ annual leave where you have failed to: (a) recognise their right to statutory paid annual leave; (b) give them a reasonable opportunity, and encourage them, to take their annual leave entitlement; or (c) inform them that any annual leave not taken by the end of the holiday year, which cannot be carried over, will be lost.

Form contents

Our form asks the employee to specify how many days of the current holiday year’s leave entitlement they’ve already used, or had approved to be used, and how many days they wish to carry over. It also asks them to set out the reason for their request. That way, you can assess whether there is a good, genuine reason for the request and whether they are being reasonable about the number of days they want to carry forward. You might wish to have a limit on this, e.g. three days (although that will not apply in relation to the statutory exceptions set out above). Likewise, you might want to set a deadline by which carried over annual leave has to be used and our form provides for this.

Working Time Regulations

The Working Time Regulations 1998 ban the carrying over to another holiday year of four weeks’ annual leave (but subject to the statutory exceptions set out above). This means that at least four weeks of annual leave must generally be taken during the holiday year in which the worker is entitled to it, but some or all of the additional 1.6 weeks’ annual leave can be carried over into the next holiday year provided a “relevant agreement” provides for this. A relevant agreement includes any agreement in writing that’s legally enforceable between worker and employer.