Statutory sick, maternity and paternity pay

Statu­to­ry Sick Pay (SSP), Statu­to­ry Mater­ni­ty Pay (SMP), Statu­to­ry Pater­ni­ty Pay (SPP) and Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) are impor­tant reg­u­la­tions to under­stand as they enforce min­i­mum legal require­ments on employ­ers. Each oper­ates in a dif­fer­ent way.

This fact­sheet sets out the main prin­ci­ples of the reg­u­la­tions and what an employ­er needs to con­sid­er.

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

SSP applies to all employ­ers, regard­less of size and rep­re­sents the min­i­mum pay­ments which should be paid by law.

It is pos­si­ble to opt out of the scheme but only if an employer’s occu­pa­tion­al sick pay scheme is equal to or more than SSP. There would still be a require­ment to keep appro­pri­ate records, etc.

We have out­lined the gen­er­al prin­ci­ples below but first we need to explain some of the spe­cial terms used.

Who qualifies for SSP?

Employ­ees must have noti­fied you about their sick­ness — either with­in your own time lim­it or with­in sev­en days.

They must give evi­dence of their inca­pac­i­ty. Employ­ees can self-cer­ti­fy their absence for the first con­sec­u­tive sev­en days: there­after, form Med3 (Fit Note) is required from their Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er.

Before 6 April 2026

Up until 6 April 2026 there were fur­ther restric­tions on enti­tle­ment:

• Employ­ees must have had aver­age week­ly earn­ings above the Low­er Earn­ings Lim­it (LEL) at the begin­ning of a peri­od of inca­pac­i­ty or linked peri­ods..
• A sick­ness peri­od had to be more than four Qual­i­fy­ing Days (QDs) and the first three QDs of a peri­od were called Wait­ing Days. SSP was not payable for Wait­ing Days.

There are tran­si­tion­al arrange­ments for those whose sick­ness strad­dles 6 April 2026.

How much SSP is payable?

From 6 April 2026, the low­er of:

• 80% of the employ­ees aver­age week­ly earn­ings
• The Statu­to­ry week­ly rate — £123.25 for 2026/27

Sick pay is cal­cu­lat­ed on a dai­ly rate which may vary for dif­fer­ent employ­ees. It is cal­cu­lat­ed by divid­ing the week­ly rate by the num­ber of qual­i­fy­ing days in a week. For exam­ple, an employ­ee with a five day work­ing week would have a dai­ly statu­to­ry rate of £24.65 for 2026/27.

Maximum SSP

The max­i­mum enti­tle­ment is 28 weeks in each peri­od of sick­ness or linked peri­ods (absences with­in 56 days are treat­ed as one con­tin­u­ous peri­od).

Employ­ers are not able to recov­er SSP paid for sick­ness absences.

Pay as You Earn (PAYE) and records

SSP is includ­ed in gross pay and PAYE is oper­at­ed as nor­mal.

Employ­ers should mon­i­tor sick­ness absence and main­tain detailed records as these will be required for PAYE pur­pos­es.  

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)

SMP is paid to female employ­ees or for­mer employ­ees who have had or are about to have a baby.

The pay­ment of SMP is com­pul­so­ry where the employ­ee ful­fils cer­tain require­ments.

The requirements

SMP is payable pro­vid­ed the employ­ee has:

• start­ed her mater­ni­ty leave
• giv­en 28 days notice of her mater­ni­ty leave (unless with good rea­son)
• pro­vid­ed med­ical evi­dence with a form (MATB1)
• been employed con­tin­u­ous­ly for 26 weeks up to and includ­ing her qual­i­fy­ing week
• had aver­age week­ly earn­ings (AWE) above the LEL in the rel­e­vant peri­od.

It is impor­tant to note that moth­ers have a legal enti­tle­ment to take up to 52 weeks off around the time of the birth of their baby, whether or not they qual­i­fy for SMP. This means that moth­ers can choose to take up to one year off in total.

The amount payable

The rates of SMP, SPP, statu­to­ry shared parental pay and statu­to­ry adop­tion pay are £184.03 per week (or 90% of the per­son­’s aver­age week­ly earn­ings if that is less).

SMP is payable for a max­i­mum of 39 weeks. The date the baby is due, as shown on the MATB1 cer­tifi­cate, deter­mines the mater­ni­ty pay peri­od enti­tle­ment and not the date the baby is born. The rates of SMP are as fol­lows:

• first six weeks at 90% of AWE (see below)
• up to a fur­ther 33 weeks at the low­er of:
• 90% of AWE
• £187.18 for 2025/26.

SMP is treat­ed as nor­mal pay.

Average weekly earnings (AWE)

AWE need to be cal­cu­lat­ed for two pur­pos­es:

• to deter­mine if the employ­ee is enti­tled to SMP (earn­ings must be above the LEL)
• to estab­lish the rate of SMP.

The aver­age is cal­cu­lat­ed by ref­er­ence to the employee’s rel­e­vant peri­od. This is based on an eight week peri­od up to the end of the qual­i­fy­ing week, which is 15 weeks before the baby is due. In some instances sub­se­quent pay ris­es have to be tak­en into account when cal­cu­lat­ing SMP. Earn­ings for this pur­pose are the same as for Class 1 NICs and include SSP.

Recovery of SMP

92% of SMP paid can be recov­ered by deduc­tion from the month­ly PAYE pay­ments.

Employ­ers may qual­i­fy for Small Employ­ers’ Relief (SER). SER is 100% of SMP plus 3% com­pen­sa­tion.

To qual­i­fy for SER, the cur­rent lim­its are:

• total gross Class 1 NICs for the employee’s qual­i­fy­ing tax year must be less than £45,000
• the employee’s qual­i­fy­ing tax year is the last com­plete tax year that ends before the start of her qual­i­fy­ing week.

Glossary of terms

Week baby due

The week in which the baby is expect­ed to be born. This starts on a Sun­day.

Qual­i­fy­ing week (QW)

The 15th week before the week baby is due. The week the baby is due and the QW are easy to estab­lish using soft­ware or online cal­cu­la­tors which are avail­able through gov.uk basic PAYE tools.

Mater­ni­ty Pay Peri­od (MPP)

The peri­od of up to 39 weeks dur­ing which SMP can be paid.

MATB1

Mater­ni­ty cer­tifi­cate pro­vid­ed by a mid­wife or doc­tor. This is avail­able up to 20 weeks before the baby is due. SMP can­not be paid with­out this.

Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay (OSPP)

The amount payable

OSPP is payable for a max­i­mum of two weeks:

For babies due before 7 April 2024 it had to be tak­en as a block either one week or a com­plete fort­night but for babies due on or after 7 April 2024 the employ­ee can take two weeks togeth­er or two sep­a­rate blocks of one week.

It is paid at the fol­low­ing rates:

• the low­er of:
• 90% of AWE
• £187.18 for 2025/26.

OSPP is treat­ed as nor­mal pay.

The cal­cu­la­tion of AWE and the recov­ery of OSPP are sub­ject to the same rules as for SMP.

Fathers will have the right to take unpaid leave to attend up to two ante­na­tal appoint­ments.

Adoptive parents

To qual­i­fy for Statu­to­ry Adop­tion Pay (SAP), an employ­ee must meet the same earn­ings and ser­vice cri­te­ria as an employ­ee seek­ing to qual­i­fy for SMP. An employ­ee must pro­vide his or her employ­er with evi­dence of the adop­tion and a dec­la­ra­tion that he or she has elect­ed to receive SAP. HMRC form SC4 pro­vides a dec­la­ra­tion form that can be used. A match­ing cer­tifi­cate from the adop­tion agency must be pro­duced to the employ­er. SAP is paid at the same rates as SMP and fol­lows the same rules with regard to recov­ery.

Shared Parental Leave (SPL)

SPL is avail­able to par­ents whose babies are due on or after 5 April 2015. In the case of adop­tions, SPL applies in rela­tion to chil­dren matched with a per­son or placed for adop­tion on or after 5 April 2015.

Employed moth­ers are still enti­tled to 52 weeks of mater­ni­ty leave. The moth­er can cur­tail her right to SMP and leave and opt to take SPL and Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). SPL and ShPP will be avail­able pro­vid­ed the par­ents sat­is­fy the eli­gi­bil­i­ty require­ments. The main ele­ments of the scheme are:

• in the 52 week peri­od there will be two weeks’ com­pul­so­ry Statu­to­ry Mater­ni­ty Leave (SML) (four weeks if they are man­u­al work­ers) which the moth­er must take
• eli­gi­ble par­ents will then be able to share the remain­ing leave and pay in the form of ShPP and SPL between them­selves as they choose
• fathers are still enti­tled to two weeks of OSPP basic pater­ni­ty leave
• moth­ers with part­ners (who must also meet the qual­i­fy­ing con­di­tions) are able to end the moth­er’s leave and pay and share the untak­en bal­ance as SPL and ShPP
• employ­ees who take SPL are pro­tect­ed from less favourable treat­ment as they will have the right to return to the same job if the total leave tak­en is 26 weeks or less in aggre­gate, even if the leave is tak­en in dis­con­tin­u­ous blocks
• any sub­se­quent leave will attract the right to return to the same job, or if that is not rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble, a sim­i­lar job
• it is up to the par­ents how they share SPL – they can take it in turns or take time off togeth­er, pro­vid­ed they take no more than 52 weeks of this leave, com­bined in total
• addi­tion­al pater­ni­ty leave and pay was abol­ished for babies due from 5 April 2015
• ShPP is cal­cu­lat­ed in the same way as SMP.

Plans to extend SPL to grandparents

Pro­pos­als have been announced to extend SPL to allow grand­par­ents to take time off work. The sys­tem of shared grand­parental leave will allow a moth­er to share her leave with one nom­i­nat­ed work­ing grand­par­ent. SPL is cur­rent­ly lim­it­ed to the moth­er’s part­ner. No start date has been set for this exten­sion.