Your rights to annual leave ‘refund’ if you get ill while off work

Brits only get so many days to take off from work to enjoy themselves – whether that’s a holiday abroad, a staycation or just some much-needed time away from the office. But if your plans get derailed by an illness, workers may not realise they could be entitled to a ‘refund’.

People who work in the UK are often entitled to a certain amount of annual leave, ranging from 28 to 34 days on average (including bank holidays), for full-time jobs, based on the legal minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave. So, using up days while feeling unwell can feel like bad timing and a waste.

But people generally have the right to switch their leave from holiday to sickness. You cannot legally be on both at the same time, so if an illness ruins your time off, you may have the right to convert those specific days into sick leave and reclaim your holiday allowance to use at a later date.

Employment and HR specialist Amy Stokes (who goes by @Employment_with_Amy online) raised the issue online. In a video, she asked one member of the public: “If you’re sick during your annual leave, can you get your holidays back?”

While the answer is yes, you legally can, there must be specific circumstances. She explained that if you were due to be off work on leave but get sick during that time, you can call your boss to request that your annual leave be returned to take at another time and your current time off be switched to sick leave.

She said: “You can do all that, if the reason that you’re sick is a reason you’d be sick from work. So, for example, it can’t be that you’ve broken a leg because if you work in an office, they might say you could still [work] in an office chair.

“It needs to be something you’d be off sick from work with, but you can get [days] added back onto your annual leave.” There are some circumstances where people will be worse off financially by switching from holiday to sick pay.

Amy said: “Sometimes, people don’t end up [trying to get the days back] because if they get statutory sick pay rather than full sick pay, for the holiday they’ve just had, they’re actually getting less pay, so sometimes they keep it as annual leave.”

The video clearly states that these rules relate to statutory annual leave rights and companies may have additional rules in place. If your company offers extra “contractual” holiday days beyond the legal minimum, the rules for reclaiming those specific extra days will depend entirely on your company handbook. Always double-check your own company policies for specific information.

How to convert annual leave into sick leave

Do not wait until you return to work to tell your employer. You should treat this as if you were calling in sick on any other ‘normal’ day, following your company’s standard sickness reporting procedure.

The days will usually only count as sick leave from the day you officially report it so waiting until you’re back in work and better will not help your case. While UK workers can normally “self-certify” for the first seven days of sickness, employers are legally allowed to be much stricter when converting a pre-booked holiday into sick leave and may ask for a sick note from a doctor or medical professional covering the exact days you were ill.