How far back can the Fair Work Agency claim holiday pay?

By Patrick Roper ACA, ICAEW chartered accountant. Last reviewed 1 November 2026. Figures next checked by 1 December 2026.

The Fair Work Agency cannot enforce holiday-pay underpayments from before 18 December 2025, the day the Employment Rights Act 2025 became law. The government proposes a six-year look-back, but that six years is counted forward from Royal Assent, so when enforcement starts during 2027 the agency can reach back about sixteen months, and a full six years is not available until December 2031. Workers can still claim at a tribunal, where a separate two-year limit applies.

Where the date comes from

The consultation document the government published on 30 June 2026 puts it in one sentence: holiday-pay claims will not be enforceable by the agency if they occurred before Royal Assent of the Act, and Royal Assent was 18 December 2025. It then gives its own example. In December 2027 a worker contacts the agency about an underpayment in March 2026. That one is inside the window. An underpayment in November 2025 is not.

Several widely read summaries describe a notice of underpayment "covering the previous six years" without that limit. The six years is real as a proposal, but it is a ceiling that the window grows into, not a reach the agency has on day one.

What the reach looks like year by year

Assuming the six-year proposal is adopted unchanged, and counting from the day the agency could open a case:

The agency's reach and the records duty line up on purpose. Since 6 April 2026 employers must keep holiday records for six years (regulation 16B of the Working Time Regulations 1998). The consultation says the six-year claim period "aligns with the six-year period for which employers must keep holiday pay records".

The tribunal route is older and separate

Workers have always been able to claim unpaid holiday pay at an employment tribunal as an unlawful deduction from wages. Since the Deduction from Wages (Limitation) Regulations 2014 those claims have been limited to two years of deductions. In January 2025 an employment tribunal held that the two-year limit is itself unlawful. That decision binds nobody else and may yet be appealed, but it is the reason some employers now treat the two years as uncertain.

So an employer has two exposures that do not share a clock: the agency's, which starts at 18 December 2025 and lengthens each year, and the tribunal's, which is two years back from the claim unless the 2025 decision is followed.

What this means for a snapshot of your exposure

• Recompute from 18 December 2025 forward for the agency figure. That is the number a notice of underpayment could carry in 2027.
• Recompute the last two years for the tribunal figure, and note that the 2025 decision could lengthen it.
• Carry both numbers, and label the six-year figure as the proposed ceiling, not today's reach.
• Fix the calculation now. Every pay run after Royal Assent is inside the agency's window whatever the government decides on the look-back.

The £295 snapshot is built that way: a sample of irregular-hours and part-year staff recomputed, and the exposure shown as a range with each window stated. It is a calculation by a chartered accountant, not legal advice, and not a finding by any agency.