Thirty-nine paid weeks out of fifty-two, and no safety net if you miss the test. See what your leave is actually worth once tax comes off.
Occupational adoption schemes normally mirror the employer’s maternity scheme — often 8 weeks full pay then 18 weeks half pay plus SAP. They are not obliged to match it, so check the adoption policy rather than assuming. Leave both at 0 for the statutory minimum.
Your contribution drops with your pay, but your employer must keep paying theirs on your full salary throughout paid leave.
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Statutory Adoption Pay runs for 39 weeks: the first six at 90% of your average weekly earnings with no cap, then 33 weeks at £194.32 or 90% of your earnings, whichever is lower. Adoption leave itself lasts 52 weeks — 26 ordinary, 26 additional — so the last 13 weeks are unpaid unless your employer tops it up. On paper it is Statutory Maternity Pay with the words changed, and that is exactly why so much of the advice about it is wrong.
A birth parent who fails the SMP test has somewhere to go. Maternity Allowance is paid by the DWP rather than an employer, it does not care how long you have been in your job, and it catches nearly everyone who misses out on statutory maternity pay. It is the reason a maternity calculator can afford to be relaxed about eligibility.
There is no adoption equivalent. An adopter who fails the SAP test falls back on nothing at all. No allowance exists, none is planned, and the same gap is why a self-employed adopter gets no statutory adoption pay in any circumstances. Most adoption calculators online are maternity calculators with the labels swapped, which means they cheerfully point people towards a benefit that does not apply to them.
What does exist is worth chasing, and none of it arrives automatically. The local authority placing the child can pay a discretionary adoption allowance, and statutory guidance says councils should consider paying at the Maternity Allowance rate where an adopter qualifies for no statutory pay — but you have to ask. Many employers pay contractual adoption pay without applying the statutory service test. And a year on a sharply reduced income often brings a household into Universal Credit that would never normally qualify. If you are refused SAP your employer must give you form SAP1 explaining why, which is the document a Universal Credit claim will want.
All 52 weeks of adoption leave are yours from your first day in a job. The pay needs 26 weeks’ continuous employment and average weekly earnings of at least £129. So a recent joiner can be completely entitled to the time off and entitled to nothing for it — the same split that now applies to paternity, and the thing most worth raising with an employer early rather than at the matching stage.
The dates are measured differently from maternity, too. Everything hangs on the matching week: the week your agency told you a child had been matched with you. That is where the 26 weeks are counted to, and the eight weeks ending with it are what your average earnings are drawn from — so overtime or a bonus in that window genuinely raises your pay. An overseas adoption has no matching week, so the service test runs to the date your pay begins instead. A surrogacy where you are applying for a parental order is tested against the 15th week before the due date, exactly like maternity.
Only one of you can take adoption leave. You decide between you who the main adopter is, and the other partner takes paternity leave and pay instead — one or two weeks, not a share of the 39. Adopting from overseas, you both sign form SC6 confirming which of you is doing what.
And an employer that runs a generous maternity scheme is not obliged to match it for adoption. The two policies are often assumed to be the same document; frequently they are not. Read the adoption policy itself, check whether an enhanced element has to be repaid if you do not return, and check it before you commit to dates. GOV.UK sets the floor, and your contract is the only place the rest of it is written down.
SAP runs for 39 weeks. The first six weeks are paid at 90% of your average weekly earnings with no upper limit, and the remaining 33 weeks at £194.32 a week or 90% of your earnings, whichever is lower. If you earn less than about £216 a week the 90% figure stays below the flat rate, so you get 90% for the whole 39 weeks. Adoption leave itself lasts up to 52 weeks, so the final 13 weeks are unpaid unless your employer offers more. The structure is identical to Statutory Maternity Pay — it is the eligibility rules that differ.
This is the question adoption calculators get wrong, because most of them are maternity calculators with the words changed. There is no Adoption Allowance. A birth parent who fails the SMP test falls back on Maternity Allowance from the DWP; an adopter who fails the SAP test falls back on nothing. There is no equivalent benefit and none is planned, which is also why self-employed adopters get no statutory adoption pay at all.
You still have the leave — all 52 weeks of it, from your first day in the job. What you do not have is anyone paying for it. Three things are worth pursuing:
If you are turned down for SAP your employer must give you form SAP1 explaining why, which is what you will need for a Universal Credit claim.
Two tests, and both must be met:
The anchor date changes with the route. An overseas adoption tests the 26 weeks to the date you want your pay to start, because there is no UK matching week. A surrogacy arrangement where you are applying for a parental order tests it to the 15th week before the baby is due, exactly as maternity does.
Yes. All 52 weeks of Statutory Adoption Leave are available from your first day with an employer — there is no qualifying period for the time off. The pay is a separate question with its own 26-week test, so a recent joiner can be fully entitled to the leave and entitled to nothing for it. That split is the single most common misunderstanding on this topic, and it is worth being clear about it with an employer early rather than discovering it at the matching stage.
No. Only one person in a couple can take adoption leave and pay. You choose between you who the main adopter will be, and that person gets the 52 weeks of leave and up to 39 weeks of SAP. The other partner can take paternity leave and pay instead — one or two weeks at £194.32 a week or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower.
Since April 2026 paternity leave is a day-one right, though paternity pay still needs 26 weeks’ service, so the same leave-versus-pay split applies to your partner. If you are adopting from overseas you both have to sign form SC6 confirming which of you is doing what.
Yes. Statutory Adoption Pay counts as earnings, so income tax, National Insurance and any pension contributions come off it exactly as they do from salary. Most adoption calculators show you a gross figure and stop there. The saving grace is that the flat rate works out at £10,105 a year — below both the Personal Allowance and the National Insurance threshold — so months spent on the flat rate usually carry no tax and no NI at all.
Very often, yes. PAYE calculates your tax across the whole tax year rather than month by month, so when your income drops partway through the year the tax already taken turns out to be more than you owed. The correction normally happens automatically through payroll: your adoption-pay months show reduced deductions or an outright refund, and you should not need to claim it. If you leave the job during your leave the balance may not work through — check your P45 against a full-year calculation.
For a UK adoption, leave can start on the day the child comes to live with you or up to 14 days before that. For an overseas adoption it starts when the child arrives in the UK, or within 28 days of that. Where you are applying for a parental order after a surrogacy, it can start on the day the child is born or the day after.
Tell your employer within 7 days of being matched, or as soon as you reasonably can, and give 28 days’ notice of when you want your adoption pay to begin. You also need to give 8 weeks’ notice if you later want to change your return-to-work date.
Statutory adoption leave and pay do not apply if you:
Fostering for adoption does qualify, and so does a surrogacy arrangement where you intend to apply for a parental order and reasonably expect to get one. If you are a genetic parent in a surrogacy you can choose paternity leave and pay instead.
Occupational adoption schemes are common in the NHS, teaching, the civil service and larger private employers, and they usually mirror the same employer’s maternity scheme — often 8 weeks at full pay, then 18 weeks at half pay plus SAP, then the balance of SAP. The half-pay stage is normally capped so half pay plus SAP does not exceed your normal full pay.
Employers are not obliged to match their maternity scheme, though, so read the adoption policy rather than assuming the two are the same. Two other things worth checking: whether the enhanced element is repayable if you do not return to work for a minimum period, and whether it is calculated on basic pay or includes allowances.
Yes, up to ten keeping in touch days. You can work up to ten days during your adoption leave without ending the leave or stopping your SAP, paid at a rate you agree with your employer. Both sides have to agree — your employer cannot require them and you cannot insist on them. Going over ten days stops your adoption pay, so keep count.
Separately, once you have been matched you get paid time off to attend up to five adoption appointments. Your partner gets unpaid time off for up to two.
Your own contributions normally drop, because they are a percentage of what you are actually paid. Your employer’s contributions do not: while you are receiving any adoption pay they must keep contributing at the level based on your full normal salary, not your reduced pay. During any unpaid part of the leave, employer contributions can stop. If you are in a salary-sacrifice arrangement the rules differ again — sacrifice cannot reduce your pay below the SAP rate, so employers usually suspend it during leave.
Yes. Adopters can convert adoption leave into Shared Parental Leave in the same way birth parents convert maternity leave — up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay shared between you. The main adopter has to curtail their adoption leave to release the balance.
The same warning applies as with maternity: Shared Parental Pay has no 90% phase, it is the flat £194.32 (or 90% of earnings if lower) for every week. If your employer runs an enhanced adoption scheme they are not required to enhance shared parental pay to match, and many do not. Compare both policies before curtailing, because the decision is difficult to reverse.
All free and independent:
Selecting someone for redundancy because they are on adoption leave is unlawful, and the protection extends for 18 months from placement. If that is happening, take advice quickly — tribunal time limits are short.
Only one of you can take adoption leave. Work out what the other partner can claim for the same placement.
