What records your employer has to keep about your hours and holiday

You might assume there’s not much point pushing back on excessive hours if your employer doesn’t keep detailed records. That assumption is wrong on two counts: the record-keeping duty is stronger than most people realise for holiday specifically, and even where record-keeping is loose, your employer still can’t ignore what they already know.

Two different duties, not one

There are two separate record-keeping obligations under the Working Time Regulations, and they work differently.

The general duty on ordinary working hours is loose. Since 2024, your employer only has to keep records they “reasonably think fit” to show they’re complying with the 48-hour limit. There’s no prescribed format.

Holiday and holiday payThe pay you receive for the paid annual leave you're entitled to under UK law, worth at least 5.6 weeks a year for most workers. It's usually calculated from your normal pay, though the exact method d... are different. A new duty came into force on 6 April 2026, under a new Regulation 16B, requiring records “adequate to show” compliance with your statutory annual leave entitlement.

What the new holiday record-keeping duty actually requires

This applies to every eligible workerA legal category that sits between employee and self-employed. Workers are entitled to certain rights including national minimum wage, paid holiday, and protection from unlawful deduction from wages, ..., including those on irregular hours or part-year contracts. Your employer has to keep records of your leave entitlement, the leave you’ve actually taken, any carry-over, your holiday pay calculations, and the dates you were paid.

These records have to be kept for six years. Failing to keep them isn’t just a compliance gap. It’s a criminal offence, carrying an unlimited fine.

Who enforces this

The Fair Work AgencyThe UK government body responsible for enforcing a range of employment rights, established 7 April 2026 as an executive agency of the Department for Business and Trade under the Employment Rights Act ... became operational on 7 April 2026 and enforces this duty, alongside other employment rights. Where it finds an underpayment, it can issue a penalty notice worth 200% of what’s owed, reduced to 100% if the employer pays promptly.

This gives you a route beyond raising things internally or going to tribunal yourself. A poor record-keeping history is exactly the kind of pattern the Fair Work Agency exists to act on.

Weak records don’t excuse an employer who already knows

Even where the general hours record-keeping duty is loose, your employer’s knowledge still matters more than what’s written down.

The Court of Appeal confirmed this in Hone v Six Continents Retail Ltd [2005] EWCA Civ 922. A pub manager was required to work 89 to 92 hours a week, and his employer knew it. The court held that once an employer has that knowledge, they can’t rely on the fact that the employee kept turning up and doing the hours as a defence. The duty to act was triggered by what the employer knew, not by what any formal record showed.

If your employer has no proper records of your hours but has clearly seen you working excessive hours, whether through rotas, emails, or simply being present, the absence of paperwork doesn’t protect them.

The EU background, and why it’s not current UK law

You may come across a European Court of Justice case called CCOO v Deutsche Bank SAE, which required EU member states to set up an objective system for recording every worker’s daily hours. This case is genuinely important background. It drove much of the wider European debate on working time record-keeping.

It isn’t current UK law. The UK’s own general record-keeping duty was deliberately relaxed in 2024 to the looser “reasonably thinks fit” standard described above. Don’t rely on the EU case to argue your employer must keep detailed daily records of ordinary hours. The relevant standard here is the UK one.

What to do if you think your records aren’t being kept properly

Work out which duty is actually relevant to your situation. If it’s about holiday pay or leave specifically, the new Reg 16B duty applies and a poor record is a real problem for your employer, not just an inconvenience. If it’s about ordinary hours, the bar is lower, but your employer’s own knowledge of what you’re actually working still counts.

Keep your own parallel record regardless of what your employer does. Rotas, timesheets, emails showing when you were working, and your own diary of hours are all useful if a dispute arises later.

If the underlying issue is that you’re working too many hours in the first place, this guide on the 48-hour week and the opt-out covers your rights there. Book a call if you want to talk through what your employer’s records actually show, or don’t show.