What a holiday-pay audit costs in the UK
Very few firms publish a price. Of those found on 1 November 2026, Irwin Mitchell offers a fixed-fee holiday-pay review at £1,500 plus VAT, Hill Dickinson offers a fixed-price audit without stating the figure, and Paris Smith published a £300 audit in 2016. No accountancy firm or payroll bureau was found with a holiday-pay audit price on its website. Our prices are £295 for an exposure snapshot, £2,950 for a full audit with the snapshot fee credited, and £395 a month for forward monitoring, all plus VAT.
Every published price found
Searched on 1 November 2026: law firms, accountancy firms, HR consultancies and payroll bureaus offering a holiday-pay audit, review or compliance check in the UK. Prices are as shown on the page or document linked in the sources.
| Who | What you get | Price | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| This firm: exposure snapshot | Sample of irregular-hours and part-year staff recomputed, exposure range, the three likeliest errors, a written note | £295, no VAT added | Five working days |
| This firm: full audit | Every affected worker recomputed, correction schedule, records pack, a call to walk through it | £2,950, no VAT added | Snapshot fee credited |
| This firm: forward monitoring | Each pay run checked before it goes, quarterly statement | £395 a month, no VAT added | No minimum term |
| Irwin Mitchell: holiday pay review | Briefing call, review of holiday-pay clauses, a guidance note, a report on who is a regulation 15F worker and suggested contract changes | £1,500 plus VAT | Undated factsheet on the 2024 rules; legal, not payroll recalculation |
| Hill Dickinson: fixed-price holiday pay audit | Offered in an article of 15 May 2025 | Not published | "Contact one of the authors" |
| Paris Smith: holiday pay audit | Review of pay, bonus, commission, overtime and holiday clauses | £300 | 2016 PDF; historic, not confirmed as current |
Everyone else found (national accountancy firms, HR consultancies, payroll software vendors) describes the service and asks for a call. That is a legitimate way to sell bespoke work. It also means an employer cannot compare before picking up the phone, which is the reason this page exists.
What drives the price
- Legal review or recalculation. Reading contracts and advising on wording is lawyers' work and priced as such. Recomputing holiday pay from payroll exports is accountancy work and priced per sample or per workforce.
- Sample or census. A snapshot recomputes a sample and gives a range. An audit recomputes every affected worker and produces a schedule that can be paid against.
- Data condition. Clean payroll exports with hours, pay components and leave dates by period keep the time down. Paper timesheets and a payroll system that cannot export a 52-week history push it up, and a fixed price has to assume one or the other.
- Who signs it. A named chartered accountant on the note is what an inspector, a board or a buyer in a sale process will read.
How our three prices fit together
The snapshot is deliberately priced so that an employer can find out whether there is a problem before paying for the full answer. If the sample shows exposure, the snapshot fee comes off the audit. Monitoring is for employers who have corrected the calculation and want each pay run checked before it goes, with a quarterly statement that the records required since 6 April 2026 are in order. The firm is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added to any of the three, and there are no other charges.
None of it is legal advice. If the snapshot shows a dispute about contract wording or worker status that needs an employment lawyer, it says so, and the employer chooses one.
Common questions
Why is a law-firm review five times the price of the snapshot?
They are different jobs. Irwin Mitchell's fee buys a review of contract clauses, a guidance note and suggested amendments: legal work on the wording. The snapshot is arithmetic on payroll data: a sample of staff recomputed and a number. An employer with a wording problem needs the first; an employer who wants to know what the shortfall is needs the second, and the snapshot says when it has found a wording problem that needs a lawyer.
Will our payroll bureau check this for free?
Some bundle a check, and none found on 1 November 2026 publishes a price for one. A bureau that runs the payroll is checking its own work; the point of an outside recomputation is that it is done by someone whose name goes on it and who did not set the original rule.
What does the audit cost compared with the penalty?
Under the proposed regime the penalty is 200% of the arrears, so a £10,000 shortfall carries a £20,000 penalty on top. The audit is a fixed fee that does not change with the size of the shortfall. The arithmetic is on the penalty calculator page.
Get the number in writing
A fixed-price snapshot recomputes a sample of your irregular-hours staff and gives you the exposure range in five working days.
Request the snapshotRelated
Sources
- Irwin Mitchell: Holiday Pay: Our Tools to Support You (fixed fee of £1,500 plus VAT).
https://foleon.irwinmitchell.com/ci-factsheets/holiday-pay-2024 - Hill Dickinson: Should holiday pay take account of tips and service charges paid via a tronc? (15 May 2025; "contact one of the authors if you want details of our fixed-price holiday pay audit").
https://www.hilldickinson.com/our-view/articles/should-holiday-pay-take-account-of-tips-and-service-charges-paid-via-a-tronc/ - Paris Smith: Holiday Pay Audit Fixed Fee Offer (£300, 2016).
https://parissmith.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Holiday-Pay-Audit-Fixed-Fee-Offer.pdf - Department for Business and Trade: Make Work Pay: holiday pay compliance and enforcement, consultation document (the proposed penalty of 200% of arrears).
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a3e79add52550a19950f617/make-work-pay-holiday-pay-compliance-and-enforcement.pdf