Retention release tracker
Commercial jobs: what's held back, and when it's actually due.
Contract & retention terms
Total value of the works, excluding VAT.
Typically 5% on commercial contracts.
The rest follows at the end of the defects period.
How long after completion the final release is due.
Total retention held
— £2,000 due 1 Jan 1970, £2,000 due 1 Jan 1971.
Follows your contract's actual terms. Retention percentages, split and timing vary by contract — check the JCT or bespoke terms you actually signed.
Retention is money you've genuinely earned that sits with the client for months after the job's done — a standard feature of commercial contracts, and an easy one to lose track of once the next job's underway. Put in the contract value, the retention percentage, how it's split, and the practical completion date, and this tool gives you both release amounts and the actual calendar dates they fall due.
How retention normally works
A typical commercial contract holds back 5% of the contract value, released in two halves: the first half at practical completion (when the work is finished and handed over), the second half at the end of the defects liability period — commonly 12 months later, assuming no defects were raised that needed putting right. The exact percentage, split and period all vary by contract, so the numbers here should always be checked against what was actually signed, not assumed from habit.
A worked example
An £80,000 contract with 5% retention holds back £4,000 total. Split 50/50, that's £2,000 due at practical completion and £2,000 due 12 months later at the end of the defects period. On a contract that size, that's £4,000 of earned money sitting outside your cash flow for a year — worth chasing on the date it's actually due, not whenever it's remembered.
Why the release dates matter as much as the amounts
Retention doesn't get chased the way an overdue invoice does — there's no automatic reminder, and it's easy for a main contractor's admin to simply not action the release until someone asks. Having the actual calendar date in the diary the moment practical completion is agreed means there's a specific date to follow up on, rather than a vague sense that "it's due sometime next year." For a business juggling several commercial contracts at once, that's the difference between retention being an occasional pleasant surprise and a predictable part of cash flow.
What this isn't
This tracks one contract's retention, not your overall exposure across several live jobs — a business running multiple commercial contracts at once should total up everything currently held back to see the real cash-flow impact, which the cash gap calculator is built for. It also doesn't chase the payment for you or account for a defects period being extended if issues are raised — those still need tracking against the actual contract.
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