Statutory sick pay calculator 2026/27
See what Statutory Sick Pay pays you each week, how long it runs, and when it starts now that the waiting days have gone.
Each week of sick pay is rounded up to the next penny on its own. That is how HMRC's own tables work it out, and it is what somebody paid weekly receives. One payslip covering several weeks is rounded once instead, so a monthly payslip can differ from the figure above by a penny or two.
Statutory Sick Pay at different salaries
The weekly amount is the lower of the flat rate, £123.25, and 80% of your normal weekly earnings, so lower earners are paid the share and everybody else the flat rate.
What happens when Statutory Sick Pay runs out
One spell of sickness pays at most 28 times the weekly rate, which at £123.25 a week is £3,451.00. That is a sum of money and not a count of calendar weeks: 28 full weeks reach it, while weeks in which you are sick for only some of your qualifying days each use less of it, so they take longer to reach it.
When the limit is reached the payments stop, whether or not you are well enough to return, and your employer should tell you before they do. Any company sick pay scheme runs on its own terms, which are in your contract rather than in the law.
Sick pay is pay, so what reaches your account is the figure above after income tax, National Insurance and anything else your payslip carries.
This page does not cover two spells of sickness close enough together to count as one, a weekly rate that changes part way through an absence, or which days of the week you were actually off — it works from the counts you give it, and each part week is divided on the qualifying days of the week it falls in.
Common questions
How much is Statutory Sick Pay in 2026/27?
From 6 April 2026 it is £123.25 a week, or 80% of your normal weekly earnings if that is lower. On £26,000 a year your average weekly earnings are £500.00, so you would be paid £123.25 a week. One spell of sickness pays at most 28 times that weekly figure — £3,451.00 — which is why a week you are sick for only some of your working days does not use a whole week of it.
How is a part week of sick pay worked out?
Your weekly rate is divided by the days a week you would normally have worked — your qualifying days, which you and your employer agree between you — and multiplied by the number of those days you were sick. The payment is then rounded up to the next penny, and the daily figure in the middle is never rounded. On £123.25 a week and 5 qualifying days, 2 days of sickness comes to £49.30. The calculator above does it on your own figures.
Do I lose the first few days?
No, not from 6 April 2026. Statutory Sick Pay now starts on the first qualifying day you are off sick rather than the fourth, and there is no longer a minimum earnings condition to meet before it is payable.
Is sick pay taxed?
Yes. Statutory Sick Pay is paid through payroll like any other pay, so income tax, National Insurance, student loan repayments and pension contributions come off it in the usual way. Many employers pay their own sick pay on top for a period, and that is taxed the same way.