Neonatal Care Leave and Statutory Neonatal Care Pay

Parents whose baby needs neonatal care get two separate things from the new rules: leave, which is time off work, and Statutory Neonatal Care Pay, which is the money your employer pays you while you take that time. The scheme came into effect on 6 April 2025 and applies to babies born on or after that date¹. If your baby starts neonatal care within 28 days of birth and goes on to spend seven or more continuous days in care, you can build up leave and pay at a rate of one week for every seven days your baby is in hospital, up to a maximum of 12 weeks².

The pay is worth £194.32 a week, or 90% of your average weekly earnings if that is less³. It is paid by your employer, in the same way as your normal wages, and it is taxable³. To qualify you generally need at least 26 weeks with the same employer and average earnings of at least £129 a week¹. The scheme covers England, Scotland and Wales; it does not extend to Northern Ireland, which makes its own rules on statutory pay³.

What neonatal care leave and pay offer parents

Neonatal care leave and pay exist because a baby in hospital in their first weeks of life can keep a parent away from work for far longer than ordinary maternity or paternity leave covers. The entitlement is for employed parents whose child receives neonatal care starting within 28 days of birth and who goes on to spend seven or more continuous days in care⁶. Parents in that position can take up to 12 weeks of leave, paid at the statutory rate, on top of the family leave they already have⁷.

The leave is a day-one right in the sense that it depends on your baby's care, not on how long you have worked, but the pay has its own qualifying tests described later on this page. Neonatal care leave can be taken in addition to maternity leave⁸, and it sits alongside paternity leave, adoption leave and shared parental leave rather than replacing them. If you are also claiming Statutory Maternity Pay or paternity pay, the neonatal weeks are extra.

The scheme is new, so some of the detail lives in regulations made in 2025 that amended a long list of other rules, from Universal Credit to pension schemes, to fit the new payment in⁹. For most parents the practical points are the rate, the 12 week cap, the notice rules and the effect on benefits, and those are what the rest of this page covers.

What counts as neonatal care

Neonatal care means the medical care a newborn baby gets in the first 28 days after they are born³. For the leave and pay scheme the care must be received within the first 28 days after birth, beginning the day after the birth, and it includes palliative care as well as medical care¹. The baby must then spend seven or more continuous days in that care for the parent to build up any entitlement⁶.

Two things follow from that definition. First, the clock starts the day after the birth, not the day of it, so a baby born on 1 April who goes straight to the neonatal unit begins care on 2 April. Second, the seven days must be continuous: a spell of three days in care, a break, then another four days does not by itself create a week of entitlement, although the regulations do allow entitlement to build up across separate occasions of care where each occasion lasts at least 7 days without interruption².

Care that starts later than 28 days after the birth, however long it lasts, does not open the door to this scheme, even though the baby may be seriously ill. Parents in that situation still have their ordinary rights: maternity leave and pay, paternity leave and pay, shared parental leave and unpaid parental leave.

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay: £194.32 a week or 90% of earnings

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay is paid at the smaller of two amounts: the flat weekly rate of £194.32, or 90% of your normal weekly earnings². The £194.32 figure is the rate from 6 April 2026; it replaced the previous rate of £187.18, which applied from April 2025¹⁰. The same £194.32 weekly rate is used for Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Paternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay, Statutory Shared Parental Pay and Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay for 2026/27¹¹.

Your "normal weekly earnings" are worked out over a set period: the period ending on the last normal pay day before the appropriate date and beginning with the day after the last normal pay day at least 8 weeks earlier². In practice this means the eight weeks of pay running up to the relevant point, much like the earnings test for the other statutory payments. If the calculation produces a fraction of a penny, the payment is rounded up to the nearest whole penny².

The pay is administered by your employer³ and is paid weekly¹². Payments may be made in the same manner as your remuneration, but must not be made in kind or by way of board or lodgings². Employers can reclaim a proportion of the payment from their Class 1 National Insurance contributions, a facility available from April 2025¹⁰.

Who qualifies: parents, partners, adopters and surrogacy

The legislation covers birth parents, adoptive parents, partners, parents who are fostering to adopt, overseas adopters and intended parents through surrogacy arrangements¹. In the regulations, the eligible person is the child's parent, the partner of the child's mother, or an intended parent, each with responsibility (or main responsibility) for the child's upbringing at the time of the birth². In adoption cases the eligible people are the child's adopter, overseas adopter or prospective adopter, or the partner of any of them².

There are specific rules for the less common routes to parenthood:

• Surrogacy: you must be the intended parent, be looking after the baby, and plan to get a parental order within 6 months after the baby is born⁵.
• Adoption: the baby must have been placed with you, or you must have received the official notification saying you are allowed to adopt, if you are adopting from overseas⁵.
• Fostering to adopt: covered as a category of parent in its own right¹.

You must also have parental responsibility for the baby in neonatal care and intend to care for the baby during the leave¹. There are no specific age rules³. Where a child dies, an adoption placement is disrupted, the child ceases to live with the overseas adopter, or a parental order does not proceed, the regulations apply as if the intention to care for the child were omitted, so entitlement is not lost because of the tragedy itself².

The 26-week employment and £129 earnings tests

To be paid Statutory Neonatal Care Pay you must have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks up to the end of the "qualifying week"⁵. Which week counts as the qualifying week depends on your situation:

You must also earn at least £129 per week on average in the 8 weeks ending with the relevant week¹. The £129 figure is the lower earnings limit for 2026/27, the same threshold used for Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay¹³. Where a baby is born early and the relevant week is determined by the expected week of birth, the test looks at your normal weekly earnings for the 8 weeks ending with the week before the birth, and they must not be less than the lower earnings limit in force immediately before the birth week².

The employment and earnings tests are what separate this pay from the leave. Someone with too little service or too little pay may still have a right to the time off, but not to the statutory money. The self-employed are outside the scheme altogether, because it is an employer-paid entitlement; a self-employed mother may instead be able to claim Maternity Allowance, where registration for self-assessment for 26 weeks within the test period means being treated as having earnings of £30 a week for 13 weeks¹⁴.

Pay builds up one week for every 7 days in neonatal care, up to 12 weeks

Entitlement builds up at one week of pay for every period of 7 days that the child is in receipt of neonatal care without interruption². The maximum number of weeks for which a person can be paid is 12 weeks². Independent guidance describes the same arithmetic: one week of neonatal leave and pay for every seven consecutive days your baby is in hospital, up to a maximum of 12 weeks⁸, and parents of premature babies may be entitled to take up to 12 weeks of neonatal care leave and pay if the baby starts neonatal care within 28 days of birth⁷.

The weeks do not have to be taken while the baby is still in hospital. The regulations set a qualifying period of 68 weeks beginning with the date of the child's birth, within which the statutory pay weeks must fall². That long window exists because leave can be taken after your other family leave ends, so a parent who has used maternity leave first still has time to use the neonatal weeks. A person may choose for the pay to be paid for a week only if they cared for, or intend to care for, the child during that week².

Twins and multiple babies in neonatal care

Where more than one child is born as a result of the same pregnancy, the maximum of 12 weeks remains unchanged². Entitlement can only be accrued in respect of one child for any period where more than one child is in neonatal care at the same time², so twins in hospital together build up one set of weeks, not two. The qualifying period in multiple births is 68 weeks beginning with the date of birth of the first child born as a result of the pregnancy².

Guidance for parents of twins and triplets confirms the same approach: one week of neonatal leave and pay for every seven consecutive days your babies are in hospital, up to a maximum of 12 weeks, and neonatal leave can be taken in addition to maternity leave⁸.

Parents of multiples may have other money coming too. In Scotland, the Pregnancy and Baby Payment carries an additional multi-birth supplement of £377.35 to help with the costs of having more than one baby, and 2% of Pregnancy and Baby Payment applications received in the 2024/25 financial year were for multiple births¹⁵. The wider costs of a new baby, and the benefits that help with them, are covered in having a baby: pay, benefits and costs.

How to claim through your employer and the notice you must give

You claim Statutory Neonatal Care Pay through your employer, and you must give notice before you take neonatal care leave and pay¹⁶. Your employer will probably need this information:

• your full name
• your baby's date of birth, and adoption details if relevant
• the dates your baby is or was in neonatal care
• when you want your leave and pay to start, and how many weeks you are taking
• confirmation that you will be caring for the baby and that you are the baby's parent, or the mother's partner, with caring responsibilities¹⁶

The notice periods depend on when the leave starts. Leave taken while your baby is still in neonatal care, or in the first week afterwards, is treated differently from leave taken later:

The employee and employer can mutually agree to waive the notice requirement, in which case the employee is treated as having given notice². If you disagree with your employer's decision, tell your employer first, and if you cannot reach agreement, contact the Statutory Payments Dispute Team¹².

Changing, cancelling or moving your leave and pay

You can ask your employer to move your leave and pay to a different date if you give the correct notice for the new dates¹⁶. The regulations allow a notice of withdrawal: for an original notice covering a single pay week in the later (Tier 2) period, withdrawal must be given no later than 15 days before the first day of that week, and for two or more consecutive weeks, no later than 28 days before the first day of the first week².

There is one thing you cannot do: you cannot cancel your leave or pay if it was going to start while your baby was still in neonatal care, or in the first week after¹⁶. The notice periods for cancelling later leave mirror the notice periods for setting it up: at least 15 days before the start for one week of leave and pay, and at least 28 days before the start for two or more weeks¹⁶.

In practice this means a parent whose baby's stay in hospital turns out shorter or longer than expected can adjust the later blocks of leave, but the weeks taken at the hospital bedside are locked in. If your circumstances change, for example your baby comes home earlier than expected, the earlier notice can be withdrawn and a fresh one given for new dates, provided the 68 week qualifying period has not run out².

Working, tax and benefits while you get the pay

You can do some work while receiving Statutory Neonatal Care Pay. The pay is still payable for a statutory pay week during any part of which you work only for an employer who is not liable to pay you the neonatal care pay, and for whom you already worked in the relevant week². You must notify the employer who is paying you within 7 days of the first day of that other work². You may also choose for the pay not to be paid for a week in which you did not care for, and do not intend to care for, the baby².

The pay is taxable. The government confirmed Statutory Neonatal Care Pay as a taxable social security benefit, liable to Income Tax, ensuring consistency with the tax treatment of the other statutory maternity and paternity pay schemes¹⁷. Independent guidance states the same plainly: taxable, yes³.

For benefits, the treatment cuts both ways:

• Statutory Neonatal Care Pay counts in full as earnings when your entitlement to other means-tested benefits is calculated¹⁸.
• It is not included in the Benefit Cap, which limits the total amount of benefits some working-age households can receive¹⁸.
• For Universal Credit, statutory payments are counted as earnings¹⁹, and a claimant receiving Statutory Neonatal Care Pay is treated as being in paid work for the purposes of the childcare costs element, which can cover up to 85% of eligible childcare costs²⁰.
• The benefit rules were amended in 2025 to fit the new payment in, including the Housing Benefit earnings rules and the exception to the benefit cap for current or recent work⁹.
• In Wales, the council tax reduction scheme regulations have been amended to incorporate references to neonatal care leave and pay²¹.

If you receive means-tested benefits, the pay may reduce them, so it is worth checking the position for your own claim; free, impartial help is available from benefits in the UK and from MoneyHelper.

What happens if you leave your job

If you leave your job or are let go after your Statutory Neonatal Care Pay has started, your employer still has to continue paying you¹⁸. You do not have to pay back any Statutory Neonatal Care Pay if you do not return to work¹⁸. This mirrors the position with Statutory Maternity Pay, which does not have to be repaid if you do not return to work²².

There is also an anti-avoidance rule. A former employer remains liable to make payments of Statutory Neonatal Care Pay where the employee had been employed for a continuous period of at least 8 weeks and the contract was brought to an end solely, or mainly, to avoid liability for the pay². In other words, an employer cannot dismiss someone just before the pay starts in order to escape the bill.

If your employer becomes insolvent, the statutory payments are funded from money provided by Parliament, recovered through an annual addition to contributions, so the machinery exists for payments to continue²³. Parents facing redundancy or the end of a contract can read more in losing your job.

Where neonatal care pay does not apply

The scheme has hard edges. The regulations apply only in respect of children born on or after 6 April 2025², so parents of babies born earlier, however long the hospital stay, are outside it. The territorial extent of the pay regulations is England, Wales and Scotland², and independent guidance confirms the scheme applies to England, Scotland or Wales³. Northern Ireland legislates separately on statutory payments, with its own statutory rules for matters such as additional statutory paternity pay²⁴, so parents there should check the Northern Ireland rules.

There are also weeks in which no liability to pay arises, even for someone who qualifies:

• any week during any part of which you are entitled to Statutory Sick Pay
• the week following the week in which the child entitled to the pay has died
• any week during any part of which you are detained in legal custody, or sentenced to a term of imprisonment that is not suspended²

Payment must be made by the employer no later than the first pay day after the relevant decision or deadline, or the next following pay day where that is impracticable².

Beyond the statutory scheme, parents who do not qualify for the pay may still have options: unpaid parental leave, ordinary maternity or paternity rights, and benefits such as Maternity Allowance. The rules on adoption leave and pay and unpaid parental leave are covered elsewhere on the site.