Shared Parental Leave: 50 weeks off and 37 weeks of pay to split between parents

Shared Parental Leave (SPL) does not create extra weeks off. It lets a mother hand part of her own maternity entitlement to her partner. That is why every SPL plan starts the same way: the mother cuts her own leave short, and only the surrendered remainder becomes shareable.

How many weeks and how much pay can you share?

Up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay, and you must share them within the first year after the child is born or placed with your family.

The arithmetic behind those figures: maternity leave runs 52 weeks, 39 of them paid. The law requires the mother to take two weeks off after the birth — four if she works in a factory — and those cannot be transferred. That leaves 50 and 37.

GOV.UK gives this example: a mother who has taken 22 weeks of Maternity Leave and Statutory Maternity Pay can share 30 weeks of SPL and 17 weeks of ShPP with her partner.

How much is Shared Parental Pay a week?

Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) is £194.32 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.

That differs from maternity pay in one important way. The first six weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay are paid at 90% of earnings with no cap at all; ShPP is capped from day one. The GOV.UK example: a woman earning £300 a week starts maternity leave four weeks before the due date and moves to SPL ten weeks after the birth. She gets £270 for six weeks, then £194.32 for eight, and the figure stays at £194.32 once SPL begins.

The practical consequence: if the mother is the higher earner, transferring the first six weeks costs the household money, because that is the uncapped stretch.

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Who is eligible?

Both parents must share responsibility for the child from birth. If you began sharing responsibility only after the baby arrived, you are not eligible.

Then come service and earnings. For the leave itself you must have worked continuously for the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date, and stay with that employer until at least the week before your SPL starts. Status matters too: SPL is for employees. A worker cannot take the leave but may still qualify for ShPP, which requires average earnings of at least £129 a week.

When it is the mother's partner taking the leave, the mother is tested as well. She must have worked at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the week the baby is due — they need not be consecutive — and earned at least £390 in total across any 13 of those 66 weeks.

When can the leave start?

Only once the child has been born or placed with your family. Nothing can start it earlier.

To trigger SPL the mother must either return to work or give her employer binding notice of the date her maternity leave will end. "Binding" is literal: you normally cannot change that date afterwards. A partner may begin SPL while the mother is still on maternity leave, provided the binding notice has been given. If she receives Maternity Allowance, the notice goes to Jobcentre Plus rather than an employer.

Can the leave be split into blocks?

Yes. Each parent can book up to three separate blocks of SPL, and more — in shorter stretches of at least a week — if the employer agrees.

The deadline to remember is eight weeks: that is how much notice your employer must have before each block begins. Plans can change later, but the eight-week window still applies.

During SPL each parent may work up to 20 days, known as SPLIT days (Shared Parental Leave in touch). They do not bring the leave to an end.

What else should you know?

Paternity Leave and Pay are unaffected and can be taken before or after SPL. Parents may be off together or stagger their blocks; the rules do not force either pattern. Adopters and parents using a surrogate have their own eligibility criteria, and whoever claims adoption pay must take at least two weeks of adoption leave.

GOV.UK runs an official Shared Parental Leave and Pay planning tool showing how the weeks fall for each parent under a given scenario. Run your numbers through it before serving binding notice — once that notice is in, you cannot take it back.