Maternity leave and pay: how much you get and how to plan it
Maternity leave lasts up to 52 weeks, and Statutory Maternity Pay covers 39 of them: 90% of your average earnings for six weeks, then up to £194.32 a week.
Statutory Maternity Leave gives you up to a year off around your baby’s birth, and as an employee you have the right to it from your first day in the job, whatever your hours or pay. The part that needs planning is the money. Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) stops after 39 weeks, so if you take the full 52, the last 13 weeks are unpaid unless your employer pays more.
To get SMP, you need to have worked for your employer for at least 26 weeks by the ‘qualifying week’, the 15th week before your baby is due, and to earn at least £129 a week on average before tax. If you don’t qualify, or you’re self-employed, you may get Maternity Allowance instead, at up to the same weekly rate.
The date to put in your diary is 15 weeks before your due date, at around 25 weeks pregnant. By then, tell your employer when your baby is due and when you want your leave to start.
How much is maternity pay, week by week?
For the first six weeks, SMP is 90% of your average weekly earnings before tax, with no upper limit. For the next 33 weeks, it’s £194.32 a week, or 90% of your earnings if that is lower. Weeks 40 to 52 of your leave have no statutory pay.
SMP is paid the same way as your wages, weekly or monthly, and tax and National Insurance are deducted, so the figures in this guide are before deductions. It usually starts on the day your leave starts.
Worked examples
Your employer works out your average weekly earnings from your gross pay over an eight-week ‘relevant period’ leading up to the qualifying week. At 2026 to 2027 rates, here is what SMP comes to:
- Earning £600 a week (about £31,200 a year): £540 a week for weeks 1 to 6, then £194.32 a week for weeks 7 to 39. That comes to £9,652.56 in total.
- Earning £200 a week: £180 a week for all 39 weeks, because 90% of your earnings is already below £194.32. That comes to £7,020 in total.
On £600 a week, pay drops to roughly a third of normal earnings after week six, so for higher earners that is the big change to plan for. Whatever you earn, plan how to cover the unpaid final 13 weeks if you want the full year off.
Company maternity pay
Your employer can offer more than the statutory leave and pay through a company maternity scheme, but never less. Check your contract or staff handbook for how much it pays, for how long and any conditions attached before you settle on dates.
If your SMP looks wrong, ask your employer to explain how they worked it out. If you still disagree, or your employer can’t pay, contact HMRC’s Statutory Payment Disputes Team.
Do you qualify for maternity leave and SMP?
Leave and pay have separate rules, so you can qualify for one without the other.
Maternity leave
You can take Statutory Maternity Leave if you’re an employee and give your employer the correct notice. How long you’ve worked there, your hours and your pay make no difference. The right doesn’t cover people classed as ‘workers’ rather than employees, so check your employment status if you’re not sure which you are.
Statutory Maternity Pay
For SMP, you need all of these:
- at least 26 weeks’ continuous work for the same employer, continuing into the qualifying week (the 15th week before the week your baby is due)
- average earnings of at least £129 a week before tax
- the right notice and proof that you’re pregnant
Because the qualifying week falls at around 25 weeks of pregnancy, you generally need to have started the job before you became pregnant. If you don’t qualify, your employer must give you form SMP1 explaining why within 7 days of deciding. Keep it for a Maternity Allowance claim.
You keep your right to maternity leave and SMP if your baby is born early, is stillborn after the start of the 24th week of pregnancy, or dies after being born.
When to tell your employer and start your leave
Counting back from your due date, these are the steps and deadlines:
- From 20 weeks before your due date (around 20 weeks pregnant): your midwife or doctor can give you a MATB1 certificate, the usual proof of pregnancy for SMP.
- At least 15 weeks before your due date (around 25 weeks pregnant): tell your employer your due date and the day you want your leave to start. They can ask for this in writing and must confirm your start and end dates within 28 days.
- From 11 weeks before the week your baby is due (around 29 weeks pregnant): the earliest your leave can usually start.
- At least 28 days before you want SMP to start: give your employer notice of the date, usually your first day of leave. Hand over your MATB1 or a letter from your doctor or midwife no later than 21 days after SMP starts; without it, you won’t get SMP.
- After the birth: you must take at least 2 weeks off, or 4 if you work in a factory.
Your employer can’t refuse your maternity leave or change how much of it you take. You can move your start date with 28 days’ notice, and change the date you go back with at least 8 weeks’ notice.
Two things bring the start forward. If your baby arrives early, leave starts the day after the birth; give your employer the birth certificate or a document from your doctor or midwife confirming the date. And if you’re off work with a pregnancy-related illness in the 4 weeks before the week your baby is due, your leave and SMP start automatically.
GOV.UK’s maternity planner works out these dates from your due date. Until your leave starts, you’re also entitled to paid time off for antenatal care, including antenatal or parenting classes your midwife or doctor recommends, once you’ve told your employer about the pregnancy.
Self-employed or can’t get SMP? Maternity Allowance
Maternity Allowance is paid by the government rather than your employer. You may be able to get it if you’re self-employed, employed but not eligible for SMP, have recently stopped working, or do unpaid work for your spouse’s or civil partner’s business.
Who can get it
You need to have been employed or registered as self-employed for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before your baby is due. The weeks don’t need to be in a row, and different jobs or gaps between them don’t matter. If you were employed, you also need to have earned at least £30 a week in any 13 of those weeks.
How much you get
- 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.
- Self-employed: between £27 and £194.32 a week for up to 39 weeks, depending on how many weeks of Class 2 National Insurance you have in those 66 weeks. For the full amount, you need to have been registered with HMRC for at least 26 of the weeks and have Class 2 for at least 13 of them.
- Unpaid work in your spouse’s or civil partner’s business: £27 a week for up to 14 weeks.
If your profits are £7,105 a year or more, Class 2 is treated as paid, so there is nothing to pay. The voluntary Class 2 rate of £3.65 a week only matters if your profits are below that.
If HMRC has fewer than 13 weeks on record, it contacts you after you claim to say how many more contributions would get you the maximum. You may be paid £27 a week at first while your contributions are linked to the claim, which can take several weeks. Payments then go up and are backdated if needed.
How to claim
You can apply with the MA1 claim form once you’re 26 weeks pregnant. Send your payslips, your MATB1 or a letter from your doctor or midwife and, if your employer refused SMP, your SMP1 form. Payments can start any time from the 11th week before your due week up to the day after the birth, and you should claim within 3 months of your chosen start date to get the full amount. You should hear within 20 working days, and the allowance is paid every 2 or 4 weeks.
If you get Universal Credit, it’s reduced by the amount of your Maternity Allowance, although your total benefit payments usually go up or stay the same. A benefits calculator shows the overall effect.
Sharing leave and pay with your partner
Shared Parental Leave (SPL) lets you turn part of your maternity leave and pay into leave that you and your partner can share. Between you, you can share up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay in your baby’s first year, in one go or in up to 3 blocks each, together or one after the other.
To switch, you give your employer ‘binding notice’ of the date your maternity leave and pay will end, or tell Jobcentre Plus if you get Maternity Allowance. You can’t end it during the 2 compulsory weeks after the birth, and once maternity pay or Maternity Allowance stops, it can’t restart. Each of you then gives your employer at least 8 weeks’ written notice of your leave dates.
If you take 22 weeks of maternity leave and pay, for example, 30 weeks of leave and 17 weeks of pay are left to share. Statutory Shared Parental Pay is £194.32 a week, or 90% of your average weekly earnings if that is lower, for the whole time. It has no equivalent of SMP’s first six weeks at 90% with no cap, so if 90% of your earnings is more than £194.32, ending maternity pay before those six weeks are up means giving up your best-paid weeks.
You both need to meet some conditions, and they depend on who takes the leave:
- The parent taking SPL needs to have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date, and to stay there until the week before the leave starts. For Shared Parental Pay, they also need average earnings of at least £129 a week.
- If only one of you takes SPL, the other still needs to have worked for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the due week, earning at least £390 in total across 13 of them.
GOV.UK’s Shared Parental Leave planner shows when you can each take leave and how much statutory pay you would get.
Your partner can also take Paternity Leave and Pay before or after Shared Parental Leave.
