Can you take your child out of school in term time, and what is the fine?
Published 8 September 2026
In England, if you take your child out of school for a holiday without the headteacher's permission, you can be fined 80 pounds per parent, per child, rising to 160 if it is not paid within 21 days. A second fine within three years is 160 with no discount, and a third occasion means no fine at all but the council can prosecute. The national threshold is ten unauthorised sessions (five school days) in a rolling ten school weeks, and the head is only allowed to authorise leave in exceptional circumstances, which a cheaper flight is not.
That is the position since the national framework came in for the 2024/25 school year. Before that, councils set their own thresholds and amounts. The rest of this page is the detail, and the three nations where the rules are different.
When does the fine apply?
- The threshold is ten sessions. A session is a half day, so ten sessions
is five school days of unauthorised absence. They do not have to be consecutive, and they count across a rolling period of ten school weeks, so two short unauthorised absences a few weeks apart can add up to one fine.
- The threshold is a trigger to consider, not an automatic fine. When a
school sees the threshold met it must consider whether a penalty notice is appropriate. It can also go the other way: a notice can be issued before the threshold is reached where there is evidence a parent is deliberately keeping the absence under it.
- It is per parent and per child. Two parents taking two children away for
a week can receive four fines.
- Unauthorised means without permission. If the school has authorised the
absence, there is no fine, whatever the reason. The question is always whether the head agreed.
- The school refers, the council issues. Schools do not fine you directly.
They report the absence to the local authority, which issues the penalty notice.
What are the amounts?
| Occasion | Amount |
|---|---|
| First penalty notice, paid within 21 days | 80 pounds per parent per child |
| First penalty notice, paid after 21 days and within 28 | 160 pounds per parent per child |
| Second penalty notice within three years | 160 pounds, no reduced rate |
| Third occasion within three years | No penalty notice; the council can prosecute |
A second notice left unpaid after 28 days can itself take you to court.
Prosecution for failing to secure attendance can result in a fine of up to 2,500 pounds, a community order, or a prison sentence of up to three months. In practice most cases end at the penalty notice.
What counts as exceptional circumstances?
The law does not list them, and heads apply their own judgement. Things that are commonly authorised: a funeral, a family event that genuinely cannot be moved, a parent's leave from military deployment, a religious observance. Things that are almost never authorised: a holiday that is cheaper in term time, a trip booked before checking the dates, an event that could have been arranged in the holidays.
If you think your circumstances are exceptional, apply to the school in writing before you go, with the reason. A head who refuses will usually say why, and the refusal is not a fine; the fine only follows if you go anyway.
What about Wales?
Wales runs its own scheme, and the amounts and windows are not England's. A penalty notice is 60 pounds if paid within 28 days, rising to 120 pounds if paid after 28 days but within 42. If it is still unpaid at 42 days the council must either prosecute or withdraw the notice; there is no third rate.
The bigger difference is not the money. Welsh headteachers keep a discretionary power to authorise leave for a family holiday in term time, normally no more than ten days, which their English counterparts no longer have in any meaningful sense. A request in Wales is a real request that can be granted on its merits.
Whether your council issues notices for holidays specifically, and at what point, is set out in that council's own published code of conduct rather than nationally. Read yours before assuming either way.
What about Scotland?
Scotland has no penalty notice system, so there is no fixed fine for a term-time holiday. Schools record the absence as unauthorised, and holidays are not normally authorised except in exceptional circumstances: the guidance gives the example of a parent in the armed services or the emergency services whose employer cannot accommodate leave in the school holidays.
"No penalty notice" is not the same as "nothing can happen". Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, a parent who fails to comply with an attendance order can end up before the sheriff court, where a conviction carries a fine of up to 1,000 pounds. That is the persistent-non-attendance route, and a single family holiday does not put you on it.
What about Northern Ireland?
Northern Ireland also has no penalty notice system. Absence is recorded, and a pupil whose attendance falls below 85 per cent may be referred to the Education Welfare Service, which works with the family first.
As in Scotland, the far end still exists. Where parents will not engage, the service can apply to the courts, and a magistrates' court can fine up to 1,000 pounds for each child who is not attending. Prosecution is explicitly a last resort, and one family holiday does not produce it.
Does it apply to independent schools?
No. Penalty notices can only be issued in respect of pupils at maintained schools, academies, pupil referral units and alternative provision academies, so a parent whose child is at an independent school cannot be given one.
That is a limit on the penalty notice, not on the underlying duty. The offence of failing to secure regular attendance still exists and prosecution remains possible in principle. In practice an independent school deals with term-time absence through its own attendance policy, which usually means a conversation with the head rather than anything from the council.
How do you avoid a fine?
Not by finding a loophole; there is not one. The practical steps are:
- Get the school's term dates before booking anything. Not the council's, the
school's. Academies and independent schools set their own, and an INSET day at the start or end of a holiday can add a day without costing an absence.
- Book inside the holidays, using the actual dates. The six-week summer and
the two-week Easter are the windows.
- If the reason is genuinely exceptional, ask in writing, before booking.
- If you do go without permission, know the arithmetic: five days is the
threshold, and it is per parent and per child.
