A New Legal Landscape for Holiday Records
As of 6 April 2026, every employer in the United Kingdom faces a significant new statutory obligation. Under amendments to the Working Time Regulations introduced through the Employment Rights Act, businesses are now legally required to maintain comprehensive records of annual leave and holiday pay for a minimum of six years. This is not a minor administrative update — it is a fundamental shift in how HR departments must approach leave management and payroll documentation.
Previously, many organisations maintained some form of leave tracking as best practice. Some used spreadsheets, others relied on HR software, and a handful still depended on paper-based systems. What none of them faced was a hard legal requirement to retain detailed, auditable records for a defined period. That has now changed entirely.
The new duty covers a broad range of leave-related information. Employers must record ordinary leave taken by each employee, any additional leave entitlements, and any holiday hours or days carried forward from one leave year to the next. Crucially, the regulation does not stop at simply logging when someone was off work. It extends to the full mechanics of how holiday pay is calculated — including which earnings were factored in, which were excluded, and the rationale behind those decisions.
What Exactly Must Be Recorded?
HR teams need to understand the specific categories of information now required by law. Getting this wrong — or failing to document it at all — could expose organisations to enforcement action and tribunal claims.
- The amount of statutory and contractual annual leave taken by each worker during each leave year
- Any leave carried forward into a subsequent leave year, along with the reasons for that carry-over
- Detailed holiday pay calculations, including all variable pay elements considered such as overtime, commission, and regular bonuses
- Any payments made in lieu of leave, for example where a worker leaves employment with unused holiday entitlement
- Records of rolled-up holiday pay arrangements where these are permitted
This level of granularity demands that HR systems — whether software platforms or manual processes — are updated immediately. Any gaps in records from April 2026 onwards create legal exposure. HR directors should treat this as an urgent audit priority rather than a gradual improvement project.
Why the Six-Year Retention Period Matters
The six-year retention requirement aligns holiday records with the standard limitation period for contract claims in England and Wales. This is deliberate. Workers who believe they have been underpaid holiday pay can bring a claim going back several years, and employers will now be expected to produce records to defend those claims. Without proper documentation, an employer's position in a tribunal becomes significantly weaker.
For HR teams, this means that records created today must be stored securely and remain accessible and retrievable for at least six years from the date of creation. Data storage policies, GDPR compliance, and IT infrastructure all need to be reviewed in light of this requirement. It is not enough to hold data — it must be held in a way that allows meaningful retrieval and interpretation when needed.
The Growing Threat of Travel Disruption
Alongside the compliance challenge, HR departments are also grappling with an increasingly common operational headache: employees stranded abroad due to travel disruption. Flight cancellations, severe weather events, airport strikes, and geopolitical instability have all contributed to a significant rise in situations where employees simply cannot return to work on time after annual leave.
This creates a multi-layered problem for HR. There are questions around pay — should employees who are stranded receive their normal salary? There are questions around absence recording — how should the additional days be categorised? And there are questions around disciplinary risk — can an employer take action against someone who fails to attend work due to circumstances outside their control?
Without a clear, consistently applied policy, organisations face inconsistency, potential discrimination claims, and employee relations damage. Managers handling these situations in an ad hoc way are more likely to make decisions that appear fair but create legal risk.
Building a Robust Travel Disruption Policy
HR teams should act now to establish or update a formal travel disruption framework. A well-drafted policy should address the following areas clearly and without ambiguity.
- Notification requirements — employees must inform their manager as soon as they become aware that a return to work may be delayed, providing documentation such as airline confirmation of cancellation
- Pay treatment — the policy should specify whether additional days away will be treated as paid leave from the employee's remaining entitlement, unpaid leave, or another agreed arrangement
- Remote working provisions — where the nature of the role permits it, employees stranded abroad may be expected to work remotely during the disruption period, subject to data security and tax considerations
- Evidence standards — employees should be expected to provide reasonable evidence of disruption, such as airline correspondence or official travel advisories
- Management escalation — clear guidance on when HR involvement is required and when line managers can resolve the situation independently
Consistency Is the Cornerstone of Compliance
One of the most significant legal risks in both holiday compliance and travel disruption management is inconsistency. When one employee receives paid leave during a travel disruption and another does not, or when one manager records holiday pay calculations differently from another, the organisation becomes vulnerable. Inconsistency can form the basis of discrimination claims, equal pay arguments, and constructive dismissal cases.
HR must therefore do more than write policies. It must train managers, audit application, and build accountability into people management processes. Regular reviews of how leave is being recorded, how pay calculations are being documented, and how travel disruption cases are being handled will help identify gaps before they become liabilities.
Immediate Actions for HR Teams
Given that the six-year record-keeping obligation is already in force, there is no time for a phased response. HR leaders should move quickly on the following priorities.
- Conduct an immediate audit of current leave recording and holiday pay calculation practices to identify gaps against the new legal requirements
- Review HR software and payroll systems to ensure they can capture and retain the full range of information now legally required
- Update the employee handbook and any leave-related policies to reflect the new obligations and the organisation's approach to travel disruption
- Deliver targeted training to line managers on the legal requirements and how to handle both routine leave queries and disruption scenarios
- Establish a document retention policy that ensures all holiday-related records are stored securely and accessibly for a minimum of six years
The Bottom Line
The Employment Rights Act amendments have moved holiday record-keeping from a recommended practice to a legal obligation. For HR teams, this is both a compliance imperative and an opportunity to build stronger, fairer, and more consistent people management frameworks. Addressing both the documentation requirements and the travel disruption challenge together — rather than treating them as separate issues — will put organisations in the strongest possible position as workforce mobility and employment law complexity continue to grow.