Maternity, paternity and shared parental leave
Three different schemes, four different names for the money, and a set of notice deadlines nobody tells you about until you have missed one. Here is what you are actually entitled to, and what you have to do to get it.
In short
- Maternity leave is 52 weeks. Maternity pay is 39 weeks. Those are two different numbers and the gap at the end is unpaid.
- The first 6 weeks are paid at 90% of your average weekly earnings, with no cap. The next 33 weeks are £194.32 a week, or 90% of your earnings if that is lower.
- To qualify you need to earn at least £129 a week on average, and to have been with the same employer for 26 weeks by the 15th week before your due date.
- If you do not qualify, you are not left with nothing — Maternity Allowance pays up to the same £194.32 for up to 39 weeks, and it is the route most self-employed parents take.
- Paternity leave is 2 weeks, at £194.32 or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower. It can be taken as two separate single weeks.
- Shared Parental Leave lets you split up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay — but only by the mother giving up part of her maternity entitlement.
- The deadline that actually catches people is the 15th week before the due date. Tell your employer by then.
These rates change every April.
The weekly figures on this page are the current statutory rates, checked in September 2026. They are uprated at the start of each tax year, so if you are reading this after April, check the current amount on GOV.UK. The rules below change far less often than the numbers do.
Maternity leave and pay
The single most useful thing to understand is that leave and pay are two separate entitlements with two different lengths. Almost every misunderstanding starts here.
Leave: 52 weeks
Statutory Maternity Leave is a year, and nearly every employee gets it from day one of the job. There is no minimum length of service and no earnings test. You do not have to take all of it, but you must take at least 2 weeks after the birth (4 if you work in a factory).
Pay: 39 weeks
Statutory Maternity Pay runs for 39 of those 52 weeks. It has its own qualifying conditions, which some people meet and some do not. The final 13 weeks of leave are unpaid.
So a full year off is normal and legal — but the last three months of it come with no statutory money attached. That is worth knowing in month two, not month ten.
What the 39 weeks actually pay
Before tax, and with no upper limit. If you earn well, these six weeks are worth considerably more than the rest, which matters when you are deciding when to start your leave.
Or 90% of your average weekly earnings if that is lower. For most people the flat rate is the one that applies. That is 33 weeks at the standard rate.
You still have the right to be off, and your job is still protected. There is simply no statutory pay attached.
SMP is paid the way your wages are paid, on your usual date, with tax and National Insurance deducted. It is not a lump sum and it is not tax-free.
Check your employer’s own scheme before you plan anything
Plenty of employers pay more than the statutory minimum — full pay for three months, half pay for three, that sort of thing. This is called occupational or contractual maternity pay and it is entirely separate from the rules on this page. It is usually in your contract or the staff handbook, and it is often conditional on returning to work for a set period afterwards. Find out what yours says before you decide when to start your leave.
Whether you qualify — and what if you don’t
For Statutory Maternity Pay you need both of these to be true:
- You earn at least £129 a week on average, before tax.
- You have worked for the same employer continuously for at least 26 weeks, running into what the rules call the qualifying week — the 15th week before the week your baby is due.
That second one is the trap. It is not 26 weeks by the birth. It is 26 weeks by a date roughly three and a half months before the birth. In practice: if you started a new job after you were about six weeks pregnant, you will probably not qualify for SMP from that employer.
If your employer says no, they must put it in writing.
Your employer has to give you form SMP1 explaining why, within 7 days of making that decision. Do not treat a verbal “you don’t qualify” as the end of it — you need that form, because it is what you use to claim Maternity Allowance instead. Ask for it.
Maternity Allowance
This is the safety net, and it is much less well known than it should be. It is paid by the DWP rather than your employer, and it exists precisely for people SMP does not reach: the newly employed, the self-employed, and those who have recently stopped working.
- If you are employed or recently stopped working: £194.32 a week, or 90% of your average weekly earnings if that is lower, for up to 39 weeks. In other words, the same as standard-rate SMP.
- If you are self-employed: between £27 and £194.32 a week for up to 39 weeks, depending on your National Insurance record.
The self-employed amount turns on Class 2 National Insurance. To get the full rate you need to have been registered with HMRC for at least 26 weeks, and to have paid Class 2 contributions for at least 13 of the 66 weeks before your baby is due. Pay fewer and you get less, on a sliding scale down to £27.
The one thing to do early if you are self-employed
Check now whether your Class 2 National Insurance is actually paid up. There is a window in which you can pay contributions you have missed and move yourself up the scale — but it closes, and once your baby is due it is too late. This is the single highest-value five minutes in this guide for a self-employed parent, and it is worth more than £160 a week for 39 weeks if it moves you from the bottom of the scale to the top.
Paternity leave and pay
Two weeks. That is the statutory entitlement, and it has not moved in a long time.
- Pay: £194.32 a week, or 90% of average weekly earnings if lower — the same standard rate as maternity pay.
- How you take it: both weeks together, or as two separate one-week blocks. You do not have to use it all at once, which is genuinely useful if your partner has help for the first fortnight and none at all in month three.
- When: it must end within 52 weeks of the birth (or the due date, if the baby comes early).
- Antenatal appointments: separately from all of this, you can take unpaid time off to go to 2 antenatal appointments with your partner.
Two things you have to tell your employer, and both are easy to miss: the baby’s due date at least 15 weeks before it, and 28 days’ notice if you want to change the date your leave starts.
Shared Parental Leave
Shared Parental Leave (SPL) is the flexible option, and it is the one people find hardest to picture. The important thing to hold onto is this: it is not extra leave. It is the mother’s leave, made shareable.
The mother gives up part of her maternity entitlement, and whatever she gives up becomes available for either parent to take. Between you, you can share:
- Up to 50 weeks of leave
- Up to 37 weeks of pay, at £194.32 a week or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower
- All of it within the first year after your baby arrives
A worked example, using GOV.UK’s own: if the mother takes 22 weeks of maternity leave and pay and then ends it, that leaves 30 weeks of SPL and 17 weeks of shared pay for the two of you to divide however suits.
The bit that makes it worth the paperwork
SPL can be taken in blocks with periods of work in between — you can go back for a couple of months and then take more. Ordinary maternity leave does not work like that. If you want to hand over at six months, or overlap so you are both off together at the start, or cover a nursery place that does not begin until the autumn, this is the mechanism that lets you.
The trade-off is honest: SPL involves notice periods, forms, and an employer who understands it. It is more administration than simply taking maternity leave. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether the flexibility buys you something you actually need.
The deadlines that cost people money
The big one. Tell your employer you are pregnant and when the baby is due. This is also the qualifying week that the 26-week employment test is measured against. Miss this and you can lose SMP entirely.
Notice to change the date maternity or paternity leave starts. Employers can and do refuse changes made later.
Your employer must give you form SMP1 if they decide you do not qualify. Chase it if it does not arrive — you need it to claim Maternity Allowance.
Paternity leave must have finished by this point. Shared Parental Leave must be used inside the first year too.
If you are self-employed
You are not entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay, because SMP comes from an employer and you do not have one. Maternity Allowance is your route, and the amount depends on the Class 2 National Insurance record described above.
There is no statutory paternity pay for the self-employed either, which is a real and often unremarked-upon gap.
If you are a childminder
Maternity Allowance is almost certainly your route, so the Class 2 National Insurance check above matters a great deal. Worth thinking about alongside it: what happens to your registration, your parents’ places and your income while you are off, and whether you intend to hold places open. There is more on the money side of childminding in our tax and expenses guide.
The mistakes worth avoiding
What goes wrong
- Assuming 52 weeks means 52 weeks of pay. It is 39. Plan for the unpaid quarter early, while you still have options.
- Starting leave earlier than you need to. The clock starts when leave starts, including the valuable 90% weeks. Going off at 30 weeks pregnant rather than 38 costs you eight weeks at the other end.
- Not checking the contractual scheme. People take statutory pay while their employer’s own policy would have paid substantially more.
- Accepting a verbal “you don’t qualify”. Without form SMP1 you cannot easily claim Maternity Allowance, and that is money you are entitled to.
- Self-employed parents never checking their Class 2 record. The difference between the bottom and top of the scale is over £6,000 across 39 weeks.
- Missing the 15-week deadline. It is the one date in all of this that can cost you the entitlement outright.
The five-minute version
Tell your employer 15 weeks before your due date. Read your contract to see whether they pay more than statutory. Remember pay stops at week 39 even though leave runs to 52. If you do not qualify, ask for form SMP1 and claim Maternity Allowance. If you are self-employed, check your Class 2 National Insurance today.
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