Statutory Maternity Pay

Your employer is responsible for paying your SMP or giving you written reasons why you are not entitled in an SMP1 form.

To get Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) you must give your employer your MATB1 form at least 28 days before you wish to start your pay. In practice many women give notice in writing for maternity leave and pay together by the 15th week before the baby is due, so you should do this if at all possible. There is a sample letter you can use.

You are entitled to SMP even if you leave employment (for whatever reason), as long as you were still employed in the 15th week before your baby is due and you meet the other conditions.

SMP is never repayable if you leave employment, so if you decide not to return to the same job after your maternity leave, you do not have to pay any SMP back.

Your employer can take one of two approaches when paying SMP:

1. Your employer can continue to pay SMP weekly or monthly for the duration of the 39-week SMP period (or until you start a new job, whichever is sooner), or
2. Your employer can give you the total remaining SMP entitlement as a lump sum on your termination as part of your redundancy package. You may want to take advice and check if a lump sum payment will affect any benefits you are eligible for and ask for your employer to continue to pay it on a weekly or monthly basis if it will have a negative impact on your benefit payments.

You can still be entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) if you are otherwise eligible and you are still employed by your employer in the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth.

If your employer has ceased to trade or made your redundant, it will remain liable to pay any outstanding SMP until your entitlement to SMP is fulfilled or ends. Your employer should be able to reclaim a minimum of 92% of the SMP paid to you from HMRC.

If your employer has become insolvent, HMRC will pay you your SMP entitlement. In which case, you should contact HMRC for guidance.

If you are an agency worker, you can qualify for SMP in the normal way. You can check the rules for entitlement to SMP. You should also check that you are definitely an agency worker, as some people may actually be employees.

There are also some specific rules which may help you to qualify. If you were absent from work because your agency is unable to find you work in a particular week, but you returned to work for them later, that week still counts towards your 26 weeks of continuous employment. So do weeks when you were not available for work because of sickness or injury.

If your employer offers you work for no more than 26 weeks at a time, at least twice a year, and usually offers the work to people who have worked for them recently (for example, if you are a supply teacher), then even if you do not return to work after a period of sickness or time off due to pregnancy, that period may still count towards your 26 weeks of employment.

If you are not entitled to SMP, you may be entitled to Maternity Allowance or certain benefits. See our page on Maternity pay and benefits.

If you go back to work for your old employer or if you start working for a new employer after the birth, your SMP entitlement stops from the beginning of the week in which you start such work.

There are some exceptions on work during maternity leave – such as self-employment work – that mean you may be able to work while still receiving SMP.

If you and your employer can’t agree on whether you qualify for SMP or the amount of SMP you should receive, you should double check your calculations using the Government Calculator. Ask your employer to explain their reasoning and their calculations. If your employer thinks you aren’t entitled to SMP at all, they should issue you with an SMP1 form.

If you still can’t agree, you can contact the HMRC Statutory Payment Disputes Team. HMRC has overall responsibility for the administration of statutory payments. Complaints about entitlement must be submitted to HMRC’s Statutory Payments Disputes Team within six months of the issue arising.

See our advice page What to do if my employer does not give me statutory pay?

If you have more than one employer, you can get SMP twice if you meet the eligibility conditions for both employers. You can stop and start your maternity leave and SMP from different employers at different times if you wish. 

See our article on Maternity leave and pay if you have more than one employer.