Parental leave

Statutory parental leave

Statutory parental leave is available in relation to children born or adopted in the UK.

It is a right for employees to take unpaid time off work to look after a child or make arrangements for their welfare.

They can take a total of 18 weeks' leave for each child, up until their 18th birthday, but a maximum of 4 weeks' parental leave can be taken in any given year.

Qualifying for leave

Leave is available only to your employees (unless you expand it to other categories of staff).

To qualify to take parental leave, an employee must:

• Have worked for you for at least a year before starting any leave.
• Have (or expect to have) responsibility for their child.
• Be using the leave to care for the child.
• Give you the required information, with the right amount of notice and any required evidence.

Note: In England, Wales and Scotland, parental leave will become a day-1 right from 6 April 2026. This means employees will no longer need to have worked for you for a year. They can give the required notices and evidence from 18 February 2026, to ensure they can start their leave on 6 April. See Parental leave changes for more information.

What counts as 'care'?

Caring for their child means looking after their welfare, which can include:

• Looking after them during school holidays, or otherwise spending more time with them
• Taking them to visit other members of your family
• Taking them to see new schools
• Settling them into new childcare arrangements.

What is 'responsibility for a child'?

Responsibility for a child means they have, or expect to have, parental responsibility for them (in Scotland, this is called 'parental responsibilities'). This usually means they're one of the following:

• The child's mother
• The spouse or civil partner of the mother at the time of the birth (whether or not they now live with them)
• The child's father (having married or formed a civil partnership with the mother after the birth, or jointly registered the birth with the child's mother)
• Anyone who has obtained parental responsibility for the child by agreement with the mother or by obtaining a court order.
• Anyone named on an adoption certificate for a child adopted through a UK adoption agency or a local authority 'Fostering for Adoption' scheme.
• Anyone named as parent in a parental order under a surrogacy arrangement.
• The child's legal guardian.
• Anyone named in a court order or an agreement giving them parental responsibility for the child (e.g. if they're the child's step-parent).

Leave entitlement

If they qualify, the employee will be entitled to a total of 18 working weeks' unpaid leave for each child until they turn 18. This is limited to taking no more than 4 weeks leave each year.

Each leave year will start from the day they became entitled to take it, which means their leave is likely to start on different dates for each child (unless they are born on the same day). Each successive leave year (for that child) will start on the anniversary of this date.

The actual number of days of leave they're entitled to is based on the working week set out in their employment contract:

• If they normally work on fixed days during the week, their weekly entitlement is the number of days they must work (i.e. if they work 3 days a week, each working week of unpaid leave will last 3 days.
• If their normal working week varies (e.g. from week to week over the year, or if they must work some weeks but not others), their weekly entitlement is calculated by dividing the average number of days they're normally required to work in a year by 52.

Taking leave

Leave must be taken in blocks of a week, unless the employee's child is entitled to disability living allowance, personal independence payments or armed forces independence allowance.

An application for less than a week will be invalid. It can be taken for one week or multiples of a week, limited to 4 weeks each year.

If their child is entitled to disability living allowance, personal independence payments or armed forces independence allowance, they can take their leave in blocks of days or weeks.

Required information

To claim a period of leave, the requirements and timing of when they must inform you differ slightly depending on whether they want to start it on the day their child is born or (for adoptions) placed with them.

If they don't want their leave to start on the day their child is born or placed with them, they you must tell you at least 21 days before they start:

• That they intend to take leave.
• The dates they want it to start and end.

If they want to start their leave on the day their child is born or placed with them, they must tell you at least 21 days before the start of the expected week of childbirth or placement:

• That they intend to take leave.
• The dates they want it to start and end.
• The date of the expected week of childbirth or placement.

Delaying their leave

Where an employee applies to take leave that's not to be taken immediately after the birth or adoption of their child, you have a right to delay the start date of their leave.

You can only do this if you reasonably consider that their absence will unduly disrupt your business operations.

If you intend to delay their leave, you must consult with the employee first (which may involve a meeting) to try and find another mutually convenient start date. If you can't agree on a new start date, you can choose one.

You cannot:

• Reduce the duration of their requested leave
• Split it into 2 or more shorter periods
• Postpone it for longer than 6 months or to a date that's after the child's 18th birthday
• Delay the same request twice.

After consulting, you must, no later than 7 days after you received their request, write to the employee confirming the new start and end dates, and the reason(s) for the postponement.

You may be justified in postponing leave when, for example:

• The leave is during a seasonal peak in your business
• Where a significant proportion of the workforce applies for parental leave at the same time
• When the employee's role is such that their absence at a particular time would unduly harm the business.

Contractual rights and benefits

During leave, an employee's contract of employment will continue. They should receive all the benefits of the terms and conditions of their contract of employment, except their wages. For example:

• They'll remain entitled to the benefit of your implied obligation of trust and confidence, and the terms of their employment contract relating to notice of dismissal and compensation in the event of redundancy.
• They'll continue to accumulate any contractual holiday entitlement in the usual way.
• They'll remain a member of your workplace pension scheme while taking leave (unless they've opted out of it or decided not to make any more contributions into it). Any contributions paid into the pension scheme by you and the employee while they're on leave will depend on the type of pension scheme and its rules. Usually, final salary schemes will require employer contributions, with employee contributions only payable if the pension rules require it. Money purchase schemes will not require pension contributions as long as leave is unpaid.

They'll still be bound by their duty of good faith and to all the terms in their contract of employment, including terms for giving notice to resign and disclosing confidential information.