UK Maternity Pay Calculator (SMP, Paternity & Shared Parental)

Statutory Maternity Pay sounds simple until you run the numbers. Six weeks at 90% of your earnings is generous. The 33 weeks that follow at £194.32 a week is not. For most UK earners that drop from week 7 onwards is the moment household cash flow starts to bite, and the headline statutory rate masks how much smaller your take-home actually becomes once tax, lost pension contributions, and lost benefits are stacked together.

The UK maternity pay calculator shows you the week-by-week breakdown for your salary, including the option to layer on your employer's enhanced scheme. This guide is general information, not personal financial or legal advice. It explains what the calculator is doing under the hood and where the rules commonly trip people up. For decisions about your own situation, check your contract or speak to your employer or a qualified adviser.

Contents

• The 39-Week Structure
• Who Qualifies for SMP
• How to Use the Calculator
• Enhanced (Occupational) Maternity Pay
• The Tax Twist: Why You Might Be Owed a Refund
• The Pension Trap Almost Everyone Misses

The 39-Week Structure

Statutory Maternity Pay is paid for up to 39 weeks. The structure is split into two distinct chunks and the tax treatment is identical to ordinary salary.

The first 6 weeks pay 90% of your average weekly earnings (AWE) with no upper cap. AWE is calculated from the eight weeks of payslips ending on the Saturday before the qualifying week. Bonuses, overtime, and commission paid in that window count. This is why a well-timed bonus before maternity leave can lift the first 6 weeks of SMP meaningfully.

The remaining 33 weeks pay the lower of 90% of AWE or £194.32 a week for 2026-27 (the statutory weekly rate published by gov.uk, uprated every April). For anyone earning more than around £216 a week (90% of which is £194.32) the flat rate is what applies for the bulk of leave.

The final 13 weeks of the 52-week maternity leave entitlement are unpaid. Most new parents stitch together SMP, accrued holiday, and unpaid leave to land back at work whenever the household budget can stretch to. The calculator models the 39 paid weeks. The unpaid 13 weeks are a household budgeting question, not a payroll one.

As an illustrative example, on a £40,000 salary the 6 weeks at 90% plus 33 weeks at the £194.32 flat rate works out to roughly £10,300 gross across the 39 weeks - around a third of what would have been earned working through the same period. Your own figure will vary with bonuses, tax code, and any enhanced scheme. The point of running the calculator is to see the gap in pounds against your own salary so you can plan a household buffer.

Who Qualifies for SMP

There are two qualifying tests and you have to pass both. The first is the 26 weeks of continuous service rule. You must have been employed by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the qualifying week, which is the 15th week before your expected due date. Practical translation: count back roughly nine months from your due date, then back another 26 weeks. If you were on the payroll then, you qualify on tenure.

The second is the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL). Your AWE must be at least £125 a week in 2026-27 (the LEL has been frozen at this level for several years and applies until the next HMRC uprating). For someone on a single full-time job this is rarely a constraint. It bites when you are on a zero-hours contract with patchy earnings, or in a job-share that pays under £125 a week.

If you fail either test, you are not entitled to SMP from your employer. You may still qualify for Maternity Allowance through the Department for Work and Pensions, paid at the same £194.32 flat rate for 39 weeks. Maternity Allowance is the back-stop for the self-employed who have paid Class 2 National Insurance, for women who recently changed jobs, and for anyone on patchy earnings who has worked at least 26 weeks in the 66 weeks before the due date. There is no 6-week 90% boost in Maternity Allowance, which is the structural disadvantage versus SMP.

A common misconception is that you have to be married, settled, or even living in the UK on the day you give birth. None of that is in the rules. SMP is a service and earnings test on the employer relationship. Where you and your partner are domiciled has no bearing.

How to Use the Calculator

Three inputs drive the output. None of them require digging through your contract.

Annual salary. Enter your contracted gross annual salary. The calculator divides by 52 to get your AWE, which is the figure SMP and the first 6 weeks of 90% pay are calculated on. If you have a guaranteed bonus that falls inside the eight-week reference window before the qualifying week, fold it into the annual figure. Variable bonuses are a coin toss and we would leave them out.

Employer occupational scheme. Most public-sector and large-employer contracts include an enhanced maternity policy. The calculator includes three common templates: 13 / 13 / 13 (the standard NHS / civil service shape: 13 weeks full pay, 13 at half pay plus SMP, 13 statutory only), 26 / 13 (the more generous private-sector shape: 26 weeks full pay, 13 half pay), and 6 / 33 (the bare statutory minimum: 6 weeks at 90%, 33 weeks at the flat rate). Pick the one closest to what your contract says, or "Statutory only" if there is no top-up at all.

Tax band. The calculator estimates the tax on enhanced pay by holding your normal income tax band. A higher-rate earner with an enhanced scheme pays 40% on the top-up portion through PAYE in the weeks it lands. SMP itself is taxed weekly at whatever code HMRC has set against you, which is usually wrong for the year - see the tax twist section below.

The output is a week-by-week breakdown showing weekly pay, cumulative pay, and a comparison against what you would have earned working continuously. That last figure, the income gap, is the household savings number you should have in your buffer before leave starts.

Enhanced (Occupational) Maternity Pay

Many UK contracts at large employers offer some form of enhanced maternity pay above the statutory minimum. A common public-sector template is a "13 / 13 / 13" style structure: 13 weeks at full pay (treated as normal salary minus an SMP offset), 13 weeks at half pay plus SMP, then 13 weeks at SMP only. Variants of this shape have historically appeared in NHS Agenda for Change and civil service contracts, but specific terms vary and are updated periodically - always check the version of the scheme that applies to you.

Another common shape is the "26 weeks full pay then 13 weeks half pay" structure, more typical at larger private-sector employers competing for talent. The catch with any enhanced scheme is that the contractual top-up usually comes with a return-to-work clause. Quitting within six months (sometimes twelve) of returning can mean repaying the enhanced portion. The statutory portion is protected by law and cannot be reclaimed. Specifics vary by contract, so read the small print before resigning during or shortly after leave.

Enhanced pay is taxed exactly like ordinary salary. There is no special treatment. The financial advantage of enhanced pay comes from the higher gross figure being subject to your normal marginal rate, not anything clever in the tax code.

A point worth modelling: the enhanced top-up changes your average weekly earnings for any subsequent maternity leave only if it falls inside the reference window. If you are planning a second pregnancy within roughly 18 months of returning, the timing of your AWE reference window can materially lift or reduce the first 6 weeks of the next round of SMP.

The Tax Twist: Why You Might Be Owed a Refund

SMP is taxed via PAYE as if it were normal weekly earnings. This is where higher-rate earners most often end up owed money.

PAYE works on a cumulative tax code assumption: each week, payroll calculates the year-to-date tax due on the year-to-date earnings, then deducts whatever is needed to true it up. If you have been earning at a higher-rate level for the first part of the tax year, then drop to SMP for the back half, you will have over-paid tax across the year. The refund usually shows up automatically when you return to work, because the cumulative PAYE calculation rebalances against your now-lower annual total.

Three common scenarios where this matters:

• Higher-rate earner returning mid-tax-year. You earned £50,000+ for the first six months, dropped to SMP for the second six. Your annual gross is lower than your code assumes, and the refund lands in your first payslip back.
• Enhanced scheme with a lump-sum bonus. Some employers pay the enhanced portion as a lump sum on your return. That sum is taxed at marginal rate in the week it lands, and the refund machinery only catches up later through the cumulative calculation.
• Bonus paid in the AWE reference window. This lifts your 90% pay for the first 6 weeks, but if the bonus has already been taxed at the higher rate, the SMP weeks may overtax it depending on tax code timing.

It is worth checking your March P60 the year after leave ends. If the total tax paid looks higher than the year's banded calculation would suggest, you can claim it back via the HMRC P800 process. We covered the mechanics in our P800 HMRC refund letter guide.

The Pension Trap Almost Everyone Misses

This is one of the most commonly missed points around UK maternity leave pensions. Under the Equality Act 2010, employer pension contributions during paid maternity leave are generally calculated on your normal salary, not your reduced maternity pay.

The mechanic is straightforward: pension contributions made by the employer during paid maternity leave are typically calculated on what you would have earned had you been working. Your own contributions are usually based on what you actually receive. As an illustrative example, a £40,000 earner on a 3% employer contribution would normally see roughly £1,200 of annualised employer contributions, rather than the smaller figure a literal 3% of SMP would imply. Your scheme rules are the authoritative source.

Some payroll systems have historically defaulted to calculating everything off the new lower SMP figure, which can underpay the employer pension contribution. If you think this has happened, raise it with payroll and request a correction with reference to your scheme rules.

Two practical checks:

• Pull your payslip from week 7 of leave. If the employer pension contribution line is the same pound figure as it was in your last working week, that is generally a good sign. If it has dropped in proportion to your SMP drop, ask payroll for an explanation referencing your scheme rules.
• Check salary sacrifice arrangements separately. Salary sacrifice cannot be made against SMP itself, and the treatment of the employer-paid contribution during paid leave is set out in HMRC guidance. Confirm with your HR or payroll team how your scheme handles this. The relevant HMRC employment income manual entry covers the principle.

For deeper context on how the pension piece interacts with the rest of UK retirement planning, see UK pensions explained and our broader take on the savings rate maths that maternity leave compresses for a year. If you are running the household budget, the take-home pay calculator shows the partner side of the equation and the marriage allowance calculator can move £1,260 of personal allowance to the higher earner during a year when one partner's income drops below the threshold.