Having a Baby: Pay, Benefits and Costs

Having a baby changes your household finances in both directions at once: your income may fall sharply for several months while your costs rise. The state provides several payments that sit alongside whatever your employer offers, and most of them have claim windows that start in pregnancy, so knowing the timetable matters as much as knowing the amounts.

The main payments are Statutory Maternity Pay, worth 90 per cent of your average earnings for the first six weeks and then £194.32 a week (April 2026 to April 2027) or 90 per cent of earnings if lower, for 33 more weeks¹. If you cannot get that, Maternity Allowance pays up to 39 weeks at £194.32 a week or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings, whichever is less³. On top of the pay schemes there is a one-off £500 Sure Start Maternity Grant for a first baby in England, Wales and Northern Ireland⁴, its replacement in Scotland, and Child Benefit, which is payable from the day your baby is born⁴.

What money you can get when you have a baby

The payments fall into three groups: replacement income while you are off work (Statutory Maternity Pay from your employer, or Maternity Allowance from the government if you do not qualify), one-off grants around the birth (the Sure Start Maternity Grant in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or the Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment in Scotland), and ongoing support as the child grows (Child Benefit, plus any means-tested benefits your family qualifies for). A partner may also have paternity pay, and parents can share leave through shared parental leave and pay.

Each payment has its own claim window, and several of them open weeks or months before the birth. The Sure Start Maternity Grant can be claimed from 11 weeks before the baby is due⁵. Maternity Allowance claims open once you have been pregnant for 26 weeks⁸. In Scotland, Best Start Grant claims open at 25 weeks of pregnancy⁹. Child Benefit is the exception: it starts with the birth, and because it can only be backdated three months, a claim made late means money lost for good⁶.

The cost of a baby is a live issue for many families: research published in 2026 found that half of UK early years parents have delayed having a baby because of the costs involved¹³. The payments below are the statutory floor. Many employers pay more than the minimum through occupational or enhanced maternity schemes, and those terms are in your contract or staff handbook. Where an employer pays occupational maternity pay and you also qualify for Maternity Allowance, the two can be received together, although the employer may deduct any Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance you are eligible for from the occupational pay; if nothing is said, you are entitled to both¹.

Statutory Maternity Pay: 90% of earnings, then £194.32 a week

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid by your employer for up to 39 weeks. The structure is fixed in two tiers: for the first six weeks you get 90 per cent of your average gross weekly earnings with no upper limit, and for the remaining 33 weeks you get the lower of the standard rate of £194.32 a week (for the year 2026 to 2027) or 90 per cent of your average gross weekly earnings². If your earnings are low, the 90 per cent figure is what you receive throughout.

To qualify you must have been continuously employed by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the week your baby is due, and you must earn at least £129 a week on average (before tax) in the 8 weeks or 2 months before the end of that 15th week¹⁴. Some current guidance instead gives the earnings threshold as £123 a week for April 2026 to April 2027, so two figures are in circulation; check the threshold that applies to your claim period before assuming you do not qualify¹⁶.

SMP is not just for the mother's employer to pay and the mother to receive in the ordinary case: it is a payment from an employer to an employee who meets the tests. A partner's entitlement runs separately. Statutory Paternity Pay is paid for one or two consecutive weeks at £194.32, or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings if that is less, for employees earning at least £129 a week on average⁷. Parents of twins or triplets face the same statutory entitlements as parents of single babies, though some employers offer enhanced terms for multiple births¹⁷.

SMP is treated as earnings for tax and National Insurance, so it is paid through the payroll and taxed in the usual way. It also counts as earnings for Universal Credit, which is treated differently from Maternity Allowance and is covered later on this page.

Maternity Allowance if you cannot get maternity pay

Maternity Allowance (MA) is the government's equivalent payment for people who cannot get SMP. You could get it if you are employed but cannot get SMP, are self-employed, have recently stopped working, or take part in unpaid work for the business of your spouse or civil partner⁸. The basic test is that you were employed or self-employed for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the week your baby is due¹⁸. You cannot get MA at all if you are getting, or are going to get, SMP from a current or former employer for the same pregnancy¹⁸.

For most claimants MA is paid for 39 weeks at £194.32 a week or 90 per cent of your average weekly earnings, whichever is less³. For self-employed mothers the position depends on National Insurance: Turn2us gives the self-employed rate as between £30 and £187.18 a week, and states you get a reduced rate if you have not paid enough National Insurance contributions in the 66 weeks before your baby is due¹⁹. The standard rate for 2026 to 2027 is £194.32, so the figures in circulation differ; the amount you personally receive is set by the Department for Work and Pensions when your claim is assessed. Self-employed claimants qualify by having been registered with HMRC as gainfully self-employed in the UK for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the baby's due date²⁰.

Two special cases sit outside the 39 week rule. If you do unpaid work for your spouse's or civil partner's business, you might get Maternity Allowance for up to 14 weeks, and in that category you cannot get keeping in touch days, so any work done during the 14 week period may reduce the money¹⁸. And if you were doing that unpaid work, the claim route and rates are the same MA1 form process described below.

MA is paid directly into your bank or building society account, or through the Payment Exception Service if you cannot open or manage one of those accounts¹⁹. A claim received more than 3 months after the date your Maternity Allowance period was due to start may lose money, so the timing of the claim matters¹⁸.

Claiming maternity pay and working keeping in touch days

For SMP, you tell your employer when you want your pay to start and provide medical evidence of the date your baby is due, normally the MATB1 maternity certificate from your midwife or doctor¹⁵. Maternity Action's guidance states you must give your employer 28 days' notice of the date you want to start your pay²¹, and nidirect similarly records that you tell your employer when you want the SMP to start¹⁵. If you are off work because of pregnancy from the beginning of the fourth week before the expected week of childbirth, the pay period starts automatically the following week under the statutory rules²².

For Maternity Allowance, you apply as soon as you have been pregnant for 26 weeks⁸. The claim is made on form MA1, sent with your MATB1 maternity certificate; if you are self-employed you do not need proof of earnings, because the DWP checks your National Insurance record¹. Claims open after the 26th week of pregnancy and the payment can run for up to 39 weeks¹⁸.

During maternity leave you can choose to work up to ten Keeping in Touch (KIT) days¹⁷. You will be paid for these days and your maternity leave and pay will not stop¹⁷. The same allowance applies to Maternity Allowance: if you are employed or self-employed you can work for up to 10 days during the Maternity Allowance Period, though working more than that may cost you money¹⁸. KIT days are useful for keeping a hand in at work, but they are paid on top of the statutory payment only in the sense that you are paid for the work itself; they do not extend the pay period.

One timing rule worth knowing if you plan to share leave: a self-employed mother transferring part of her entitlement to an employed partner's shared parental leave must give at least 8 weeks' notice to the Department for Work and Pensions to curtail the Maternity Allowance period²³. The mechanics of splitting leave and pay are covered in the guide to shared parental leave and pay.

Sure Start Maternity Grant: £500 for a first baby

The Sure Start Maternity Grant is a one-off, tax-free payment to help towards the cost of maternity expenses and baby items⁵. It is worth £500 for a first baby, and £500 per baby for a multiple birth⁴. The amounts step according to what has come before: if you have triplets or more and have not had a multiple birth before, the grant is £1,000; if you already had twins, a new twin birth gets £0 for the twins and £500 only in circumstances set out in the official table⁵.

Eligibility is tied to benefits. If you or your partner or civil partner are claiming qualifying benefits, you may be able to get the grant²⁴. The claim window runs from 11 weeks before the baby is due until 6 months after the birth, and claims are made on form SF100⁵. If you are pregnant, you can claim from 11 weeks before the baby is due⁵.

If your claim is refused, that is not the end of it. If you disagree with the decision you can usually ask for it to be looked at again, known as a mandatory reconsideration, and you will normally be given one month to dispute the decision²⁵. The decision will be looked at again and you will be sent a letter explaining whether the original decision has been changed⁵. If you still disagree with the further decision you can then appeal to an independent tribunal²⁵.

In Scotland: the Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment

Scotland has its own scheme. The UK Government's Sure Start Maternity Grant has been replaced by the Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment, which is no longer available in Scotland under the old name²⁶. The payment is administered by Social Security Scotland²⁷.

The amounts are higher than the Sure Start grant. For 2026/27 the Pregnancy and Baby Payment is £796.65 for a first baby, or where there are no other children under 18 in the household, and £398.35 for subsequent children⁴. For a multiple birth you get £398.35 for each baby plus an additional payment of £398.35²⁹. Worked through, a family that already has one child and then has twins receives £1,195.05 in total³⁰. In some circumstances the higher £796.65 payment is available for subsequent children, for example where there is a significant gap³¹.

Claims open at 25 weeks of pregnancy and, after the birth, must be made by the time your baby is 6 months old at the latest⁴. If you adopt a baby or start to care for a baby as a kinship carer, you can claim at any point before the baby's first birthday²⁹. You might be able to get the payment even if you are not receiving any benefits: if you are under 20 and still in relevant education, and someone is getting Child Benefit, the child element of Universal Credit or Pension Credit for you, you can still qualify³⁰. In most cases you cannot get a Pregnancy and Baby Payment if someone else has already had one for the same child³⁰.

Child Benefit: claim as soon as your baby is born

Child Benefit is the ongoing payment that starts with the birth. It is payable from the day your baby is born, and the official advice is to claim as soon as your child is born, or, if adopted, as soon as they come to live with you⁶. The reason for the urgency is the backdating rule: a claim can only be backdated for up to 3 months⁴, so a claim made six months after the birth permanently loses the earlier payments.

You can get Child Benefit for any of your children who are under 16 and live in the UK, and until they are 20 if they stay in most types of school, college or training after that age⁶. Only one person can claim Child Benefit for a child⁶. Official statistics list weekly rates of £25.60 and £16.95, and guidance gives both figures rather than a single one; the rate that applies to your family is confirmed when the claim is processed³³.

Two rules affect higher earning families. Families in receipt of Child Benefit face a high income child benefit charge if one or more parent has an individual income over £60,000 a year²³. The benefit is not stopped automatically; the charge is levied through self assessment and can claw back some or all of the payment. Separately, if you were granted refugee status before 7 April 2025, a Child Benefit claim can be backdated to when you first claimed asylum³².

Once claimed, Child Benefit carries reporting duties. Only the person claiming can tell HMRC about a change of circumstances, and if you do not report a change you may not get all the money you are entitled to, or you may be overpaid and have to pay money back³⁴. Changes you must report include a child going abroad for more than 12 weeks, moving to or from Northern Ireland, going into prison or youth custody for more than 8 weeks, going into care or residential accommodation for more than 8 weeks or hospital for more than 12 weeks, or starting to get Universal Credit, Jobseeker's Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance in their own right³⁴. The payments themselves follow a four weekly schedule, and dates around bank holidays, such as 29 December 2026, are published by HMRC³⁵.

How maternity pay and Maternity Allowance affect Universal Credit

The two maternity payments are treated completely differently by Universal Credit, and the difference can be worth a great deal over 39 weeks.

Statutory Maternity Pay is counted as earnings. The official list of payments treated as earnings includes Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Paternity Pay, Statutory Shared Parental Pay, Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay and Statutory Sick Pay³⁶. Because SMP is earnings, it benefits from the Universal Credit work allowance: in 2026/27 the allowance is £427.00 a month for claimants with housing costs included in their award, and £710.00 a month for those whose award does not include a housing amount, for people with one or more dependent children or limited capability for work³⁷. Only earnings above the allowance reduce the Universal Credit award, and then only by the taper.

Maternity Allowance is treated as unearned income and deducted in full³². Your Universal Credit payment will be reduced by an amount equal to your Maternity Allowance payment³. Maternity Action gives the example: if you receive £842 per month in Maternity Allowance, £842 is deducted from the monthly Universal Credit award¹. In cash terms, a mother on Universal Credit may gain little or nothing from Maternity Allowance itself, though the benefit of claiming is not zero, because it can protect National Insurance credits and it continues if the Universal Credit claim ends.

There is one protection worth knowing. If you get Maternity Allowance and Universal Credit at the same time and have children who were in childcare before you started getting Maternity Allowance, you can keep getting help with childcare costs for your older children while on maternity leave¹⁹. Final earnings paid at the end of a job, such as holiday pay, notice pay or a payment in lieu of notice, along with statutory maternity or parental pay, are taken into account as income in the Universal Credit assessment period in which they are paid²¹.

Free prescriptions and dental care in pregnancy

Pregnancy and the year after birth bring free NHS prescriptions and free NHS dental care, and the official baby costs calculator prompts parents when to claim these, alongside when allowances and grants can start being claimed¹³. The route is a maternity exemption certificate: you apply with evidence of the pregnancy, and the certificate then covers prescriptions and dental treatment during the qualifying period. The calculator published alongside the 2026 research on early years costs is designed to walk parents through these claim points in order¹³.

The value is not trivial over a year of prescriptions and dental check ups, and it sits alongside the tax-free status of the Sure Start Maternity Grant⁵. Neither the exemption certificate nor the grants require any repayment, whatever happens to your income later.

If your baby is stillborn or dies

The rules around baby loss are written to preserve entitlements, and they turn mainly on whether the baby was born alive and on the 24 week point of the pregnancy.

For maternity pay and leave, the position is: if your pregnancy ends before 24 weeks and your baby is not born alive, you cannot get Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance for the pregnancy⁴. But SMP and MA are payable if the baby is born on or after the 24th week and is not born alive, or is born alive before the 24th week and the other qualifying conditions are met⁴. Maternity Allowance may still be paid if the baby dies or is stillborn after the start of the 24th week of pregnancy, or was born alive at any point during the pregnancy¹⁸. Maternity leave and pay must be given for all live births, even if your baby only lives for a short time, as long as you meet the conditions¹⁶. In Scotland, a parent may be eligible for the Pregnancy and Baby Payment after a stillbirth or infant death³⁸, and the grant is still available for a baby who was stillborn or died after birth²⁹. Turn2us confirms you can still get a Pregnancy and Baby Payment if your child was stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy or if your child has died³⁰.

Child Benefit can be claimed for up to eight weeks from a baby's death, as long as you meet the eligibility conditions at the time of the birth³². If a partner dies, Bereavement Support Payment may be available: you must have been getting Child Benefit, told you were entitled to it for a child living with you, or pregnant when your partner died, and the higher rate starts with an initial payment of £3,500³⁹.

Funeral costs have their own support. In Scotland, Funeral Support Payment can be made for the funeral of a stillborn child if you meet the eligibility criteria and have incurred costs, and it also covers a baby born alive who then dies, including babies born alive prematurely who die before 24 completed weeks of pregnancy³⁸. The boundary is strict: if a baby died before the end of 24 completed weeks of pregnancy, Funeral Support Payment cannot help, unless the baby was born alive and subsequently died⁴⁰. In England, the Children's Funeral Fund is a non means tested fund that can help pay towards funeral costs for a stillborn baby or a child under 18³². Social Security Scotland has published guidance for bereaved parents, including on Bereaved Parents Day in July 2026⁴¹, and the Scottish Welfare Fund can provide discretionary crisis grants²⁷. Further help is listed in the guides to paying for a funeral and support after a death.

Where maternity pay can be lost or cut short

Statutory payments come with conditions, and several events can reduce or end them before the 39 weeks run out.

The main ones:

• Starting a new job after the birth. If you start work with a new employer after your baby is born, and that employer did not employ you in the 15th week before the week your baby was due, your SMP must stop²⁴. Maternity Action states you will need to repay any SMP that you owe if you start working in a new job before the end of your 39 week maternity pay period¹. Starting a new job before the birth does not affect your SMP²⁴.
• Going to prison. If you are sent to prison or arrested, SMP will end, but you will be able to claim Maternity Allowance²⁴. The legislation puts this beyond doubt: no liability for SMP arises for any week in which the woman is detained in legal custody or serving a sentence of imprisonment, except where the sentence is suspended²².
• Salary sacrifice arrangements. If you receive childcare vouchers exempt from National Insurance under a salary sacrifice scheme, your SMP will be lower, because the sacrifice reduces the earnings on which SMP is calculated¹.
• Earnings falling in a share plan. If your average weekly earnings, calculated for SMP purposes, fall below the lower earnings limit, for example because of a salary sacrifice share incentive plan, you may lose your SMP entitlement⁴³.
• A reduced Maternity Allowance rate. Self-employed claimants who have not paid enough National Insurance contributions in the 66 weeks before the baby is due get a reduced rate¹⁹. Voluntary National Insurance contributions can fill gaps in some circumstances, including for periods abroad²⁰.
• Working beyond the KIT allowance. Working more than the ten keeping in touch days during the Maternity Allowance Period may lead to money being lost¹⁸, and claimants in the 14 week unpaid work category have no keeping in touch days at all¹⁸.
• A late Maternity Allowance claim. A claim received more than 3 months after the Maternity Allowance period was due to start may lose money¹⁸.

Redundancy during pregnancy or maternity leave brings its own rules, and any final holiday pay, notice pay or statutory maternity pay is taken into account as Universal Credit income in the assessment period in which it is paid²¹; the page on losing your job covers redundancy pay and benefits in more detail. Where a baby is born prematurely, maternity leave and pay rights are unaffected by the birth date itself, and the guidance on neonatal care leave and pay covers the additional entitlements for parents of babies in neonatal care¹⁶.