How to get 63 days off work in 2026 only using 28 days of annual leave
Most of us would probably agree that striking the balance between work and home life can be tricky, especially if you've got kids in the mix.
But sometimes, all it takes is a little extra planning and it turns out, if you get a little bit creative with your annual leave days, you can bag yourself more than two months worth of holidays.
It sounds too good to be true, I know, but the devil really is in the detail and Target Jobs has laid it all out for us, so we can bag a whopping 63 days off by using just 28 days of annual leave.
Before we get into it, there's a few catches. For this to work, you've got to be working in England or Wales and be entitled to bank holidays off. Sorry, we don't make the rules.
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You'll also need to be a Monday to Friday-er, so essentially office workers, we're looking at you.
Now onto the the nitty gritty. The system is essentially holiday stacking and it works by stacking your annual leave on top of bank holidays to ensure you get some lovely big juicy chunks of time off work while using the minimum number of holiday days possible.
Obviously this doesn't suit everyone, as some people would rather have lots of long weekends rather than big chunks of time off at once, but if you're someone who likes to squeeze as many holidays and trips into the year as possible, this one's definitely for you.
What days to book off
- Booking Friday 2 January gives you four consecutive days off from Thursday 1 January (a bank holiday for New Year's Day) up until Sunday 4 January using one day's holiday
- Booking Monday 30 March to Thursday 2 April and Tuesday 7 April to Friday 10 April, you use eight leave days but get 16 consecutive days off, thanks to Good Friday and Easter Monday bank hols. You'd be off work from Monday 30 March to Sunday 12 April.
- Then if you book four days off over each of the bank holidays in May, you get nine days off. That means booking off Tuesday 5 May to Friday 8 May to take advantage of the bank holiday on Monday 4 May, and also booking off Tuesday 26 May to Friday 29 May to capitalise on the Monday 25 May bank holiday.
- And for the final non-festive Bank Holiday of the year, at the end of August, you can use four days just after Monday 31 August and get nine consecutive days off using just four days (plus a lovely break once the kids have gone back to school if you happen to be a parent!). This means booking off Tuesday 1 September to Friday 4 September.
- Then when it comes to Christmas 2026, this falls on a Friday, with Boxing Day, a bank holiday, falling on a Saturday which means the holiday is transferred to Monday 28 December. So if you use seven days of annual leave on this week, you'll get a whopping 16 consecutive days off. You'll need to book off Monday 22 December to Thursday 24 December, and then Tuesday 29 December to Thursday 31 December.
Quick, get those annual leave holidays booked in before someone your teammates spot this and get in there first.
Emma Rosemurgey