In the 2024/25 school year, councils in England issued 492,800 penalty notices for unauthorised school absence — and 459,300 of them, or 93%, were for unauthorised family holidays, according to Department for Education figures published on 29 January 2026. That is the backdrop to the 2026–27 school year: the dates below are the ones families need, and the cost of booking outside them is now fixed by a national rule.
There is no single UK school holiday calendar. Education is devolved, and even within England the dates are set council by council, with academies and free schools free to set their own. The dates in this article are the published calendars of named councils, given as the pattern most families will recognise — but the only dates that matter for your child are the ones published by your child's school.
England: the common pattern, and where it breaks
For most councils in England, the 2026–27 year runs like this. Autumn half-term is Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October 2026. Schools break for Christmas on Friday 18 December, with the holiday running from Monday 21 December 2026 to Friday 1 January 2027, and pupils returning on Monday 4 January. February half-term is Monday 15 February to Friday 19 February 2027. The Easter break runs from Friday 26 March to Friday 9 April 2027 — Good Friday falls on 26 March and Easter Monday on 29 March. May half-term is Monday 31 May to Friday 4 June 2027, and the summer term ends on Thursday 22 July 2027. Those are Camden's published dates, matching most English councils.
They do not match all of them. Manchester City Council, for example, publishes a February half-term of Monday 15 to Friday 19 February 2027 — schools close on Friday 12 February and reopen on Monday 22 February — and an Easter holiday that closes on Friday 2 April and reopens on Monday 19 April, with Good Friday on 26 March and Easter Monday on 29 March listed as separate bank-holiday closures. Some councils, including Surrey, the Isle of Wight, Bromley and Nottinghamshire, take a two-week autumn break starting a week earlier than the rest of the country. The gov.uk school term dates checker matches your postcode to your council — run it before any booking that cannot be refunded.
Scotland: earlier, and a different shape
Scottish schools returned in mid-August, weeks before the rest of the UK, and their year finishes earlier too. The City of Edinburgh Council's published dates for 2026–27 give pupils an October break from Monday 12 October to Monday 19 October 2026, with pupils back on Tuesday 20 October. The Christmas break runs from Monday 21 December 2026 to Tuesday 5 January 2027, pupils return on Wednesday 6 January, and the February mid-term break is Monday 15 February to Friday 19 February 2027. Edinburgh's Easter break runs from Monday 5 April to Monday 19 April 2027, and the summer term ends on Tuesday 29 June 2027 — more than three weeks before most English schools break up.
Other Scottish councils differ by more than a day or two. Scottish Borders Council publishes an October holiday of Monday 12 to Friday 16 October 2026, a Christmas break from Wednesday 23 December 2026 to Tuesday 5 January 2027, and a February mid-term of Monday 8 to Friday 12 February 2027. The October week is standard across most Scottish councils, but in-service days and the St Andrew's Day closure on 30 November vary by council.
Wales and Northern Ireland: shorter breaks, different weeks
Cardiff Council's published dates show the Welsh pattern: autumn half-term from Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October 2026, Christmas from Saturday 19 December 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027, February half-term from Monday 8 February to Friday 12 February 2027 — a week earlier than most of England — and an Easter break from 20 March to Sunday 4 April 2027. May half-term is Monday 31 May to Friday 4 June 2027. Powys is the exception, ending its autumn term on 22 December rather than 18 December.
Northern Ireland's breaks are shorter. The Department of Education's published 2026/27 calendar gives a two-day Halloween closure on Thursday 29 and Friday 30 October 2026, a Christmas break from Monday 21 December 2026 to Friday 1 January 2027, and a two-day February closure on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 February 2027.
The fine: £80, and what triggers it
Since 19 August 2024, England has had a single national framework for penalty notices, replacing a system in which the fine and the trigger varied from council to council. GOV.UK states the current position plainly: a local council can give each parent a fine of £80, rising to £160 if it is not paid within 21 days. If it is not paid within 28 days, the parent may be taken to court.
The trigger is 10 sessions of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10-school-week period — a school day counts as two sessions, so five full days reaches the threshold. A second penalty notice for the same parent and child within three years is charged at a flat £160, with no £80 early-payment rate, and each parent can receive no more than two penalty notices for the same child in a three-year period. A third incident is not fined — the council goes to the magistrates' court instead, where a conviction can bring a fine of up to £2,500.
The fines are per parent, per child. Two parents taking two children on an unauthorised term-time holiday can face four separate £80 notices — £320 in total, or £640 if none is paid within 21 days. Headteachers may grant leave only in exceptional circumstances, and the 2024 regulations make clear that wanting a holiday is not one of them.
The booking trap the dates create
The mismatch between the nations is itself a booking trap. A family with children at schools in different nations — or one child at an English academy and another at a community school in the same town — can find their breaks a week apart. Edinburgh pupils are back in class on 20 October while most English pupils are still on half-term until 30 October, and Welsh pupils break for February half-term on 8 February while English pupils break on 15 February. A holiday booked on the wrong nation's dates is an unauthorised absence, not a planning error a school will excuse.
Check your own child's school calendar first, not your council's, because academies and individual schools set their own dates and their own in-service days. Check the second school separately if your children attend different schools. Then book inside the published break: the gap between the cheapest term-time flight and the same flight a week later is now measured against a fine starting at £80 per parent, per child.