Maternity pay calculator 2026/27

Statutory Maternity Pay is 90% of your average weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks, then £194.32 a week (or 90% if lower) for the next 33 weeks.

This page tests one of the conditions: your average weekly earnings over the relevant period must reach the lower earnings limit for the tax year your qualifying week ends in — the 15th week before your baby is due. That limit is £129 a week for 2026/27, and a baby due early in a tax year has a qualifying week in the year before, so the previous year’s limit is the one that applies. The others are your employer’s to check — that you are an employee, that you have worked for them continuously for long enough, and that you gave them notice and proof of the due date in time. Under that earnings limit there is no smaller payment: your employer refuses it on form SMP1, which must say why. That refusal is about your employer’s pay alone, and you may be eligible for Maternity Allowance instead, which is not employer pay and which this page does not work out.

Yes, it is taxable. Statutory Maternity Pay counts as earnings, so it is paid through payroll and your employer takes any income tax, National Insurance and student loan repayment that is due on it, in the same way as your normal pay. Whether anything is due depends on what you are paid in each pay period: on the flat weekly rate alone, with a standard tax code and no other pay that period, the amount is below the points where income tax, National Insurance and student loan repayments start, so often nothing is taken. More can be due over the first 6 weeks, which are 90% of your average weekly earnings, or if your employer pays you more than the statutory amount. If your pay drops while you are on leave, a cumulative tax code spreads your tax-free allowance evenly across the year, so the tax taken usually drops too and payroll can refund tax you paid earlier in the year. A week 1 or month 1 code does not do that, because it treats each pay period on its own.

Your employer averages what they actually paid you over a relevant period. That period usually ends with the last pay day on or before the Saturday of your qualifying week — the 15th week before the week your baby is due. It reaches back at least 8 weeks. This page has one figure to work from, your salary before leave, so it spreads that evenly over 52 weeks instead. While your pay is level, the two averages are the same. They stop matching when that period holds something a salary does not describe: overtime, commission, a shift or on-call premium, a bonus, a pay rise, back pay, unpaid leave, weeks paid at sick pay rates, or an irregular pay pattern. Where they stop matching, the gap runs both ways: an average above the one on this page can carry you over the lower earnings limit where this page leaves you under it, and an average below it can leave you under the limit where this page shows you a payment. Under that limit there is no smaller payment: your employer refuses it on form SMP1, which must say why. That refusal is about your employer’s pay alone — you may be eligible for Maternity Allowance instead, which is not employer pay and which this page does not work out. The gap moves the amount as well, not only whether you qualify, because the first 6 weeks are 90% of your average weekly earnings and nothing caps them. Your employer’s figure is the one that decides what you are paid.