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Circumstances that impact maternity pay and leave
Circumstances that impact maternity pay and leave
Rebecca Russell avatar
Written by Rebecca Russell
Updated over a week ago

This article explains circumstances that can impact an employee's entitlement to maternity leave and pay. This includes:

  • Employees who leave employment

  • Employees who are awarded a pay rise

  • Employees who work more than 10 Keeping In Touch Days

  • Employees who take sick leave before their maternity leave start date

  • Paying Statutory Maternity Pay after an employee leaves

Employees who leave employment before the Qualifying Week

Employees who leave employment before their Qualifying Week (15th week before baby is due) will not qualify for Statutory Maternity Leave and Pay because they have not satisfied the employment criteria.

Employees who leave employment after the Qualifying Week

If your employee leaves after the Qualifying Week, you must still pay Statutory Maternity Pay. For further information, please refer to the Paying Statutory Maternity Pay after an employee leaves section.

Employees who are awarded a pay rise

If your employee is awarded a pay rise between the Relevant Period (the 8 weeks before the Qualifying Week) and the end of their 52-week Maternity leave, you need to recalculate your employee's earnings to account for the pay increase. This might impact the statutory pay due, or in some cases, change their entitlement to statutory pay. For further details about this, and how to calculate the difference, please refer to our Help Centre article.

Employees who work more than 10 Keeping In Touch Days

An employee can attend work for up to 10 days without bringing their Maternity Leave and Pay to an end. However, if they work an 11th KIT day whilst in receipt of Statutory Maternity Pay they will:

  • Not receive any SMP for the week in which any KIT day over the 10th KIT day was worked

  • Bring their Maternity Leave to an end

Employees who are sick before their Maternity Leave Start Date

If your employee is absent due to pregnancy-related illness 4 weeks prior to the baby's due date, their maternity leave and pay will automatically start from either:

  • The start of the 4th week before the baby is due, if the employee was absent continuously before this point.

  • The day after your employee goes off sick within the 4 weeks before the baby's due date.

Paying Statutory Maternity Pay after an employee leaves

If your employee was employed at their Qualifying Week, they are entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay whether or not they remain in your employment (unless they have been taken into legal custody, at which point no further SMP is payable).

This can either be done by:

  • Paying your employee as normal, using the Maternity Pay Period end date as their leave date at which point you will issue a P45:

  • Pay your employee up to their leave date as normal and then issue a P45. After the P45 has been issued you can pay the remaining amount of Statutory Maternity Pay as a lump sum using a 0T tax code.

For other circumstances that might affect an employee's maternity leave and pay, please refer to HMRC's guidance.

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