Eighteen weeks for every child, yours from your first day since April 2026. See how many you can still reach before they turn 18 — and what taking them costs.
Count leave taken with any employer. The entitlement follows the child, not the job, so weeks you used before a move still count against the 18.
A “week” of parental leave is your working week. Work three days and one week of leave is three days.
| If you take | Lost pay | After tax and NI |
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Unpaid parental leave gives every parent 18 weeks off for each child, up to that child’s 18th birthday. It is 18 weeks each, not 18 to share, and it is capped at four weeks per child per year unless your employer agrees to more. A “week” means your own working week, so three days if you work three days.
It is also entirely unpaid. There is no statutory parental pay and no benefit that replaces the wages, which is why the calculator above prices what the time costs rather than what it pays. That cost is lower than the headline — pay you do not receive is pay you are not taxed on, so a week off a £32,000 salary costs around 72% of a week’s gross.
Until recently you needed a year’s continuous service before you could take any of it. The Employment Rights Act 2025 removed that requirement on 6 April 2026, making unpaid parental leave a day-one right and bringing roughly 1.5 million more parents a year into scope. It was the same reform that made paternity leave day-one.
A great deal of published guidance still says you need a year, and so do plenty of staff handbooks — policies tend to lag legislation by a good while. The statutory right does not depend on your employer having updated their paperwork, so if yours still refers to a qualifying period, it is simply out of date.
One thing the reform did not change is who the right belongs to. It removed the service test, not the employment-status test, so agency workers, contractors and the self-employed remain excluded. If you are labelled one of those, it is worth checking whether you are legally an employee anyway: status turns on how the work is actually done rather than on what the contract calls you.
This is the part almost nobody flags, and it is the reason the calculator asks your child’s age. The entitlement does not taper away — it stops dead on the 18th birthday. Because only four weeks can be taken in any one year, an older child leaves less time to use whatever is left.
A parent of a 16-year-old who has never used any parental leave has 18 weeks on paper but can only ever reach eight of them: two years at four weeks apiece. The remaining ten are unreachable. The only way to recover them is for an employer to agree to more than four weeks in a year, which they are free to do — and which is a far easier conversation to have early than in the middle of a crisis.
First, the entitlement follows the child, not the job. Change employer and the counter does not reset: ten weeks used at your last job leaves eight at the new one. Nothing tracks this centrally, employers can reasonably ask you to confirm what you have used, and years later that will be your memory against nobody’s records. Keep your own note.
Second, your employer cannot refuse. They can postpone by up to six months where the absence would seriously disrupt the business, and must write within seven days with the reason and discuss alternatives — but leave you have asked to start on the date of the birth or adoption placement cannot be postponed at all. Give 21 days’ notice with both start and end dates. Acas advises free of charge if a request is turned down rather than properly deferred.
18 weeks for each child, and each parent gets their own 18 weeks. It runs until the child’s 18th birthday, and you can take at most 4 weeks per child per year unless your employer agrees to more.
A “week” means your own working week. If you work three days, one week of parental leave is three days — it is not five.
No, not since 6 April 2026. The Employment Rights Act 2025 removed the one-year qualifying period and made unpaid parental leave a day-one right, bringing roughly 1.5 million more parents a year into scope.
This is worth knowing because an enormous amount of guidance, and a good many staff handbooks, still say you need a year. If yours does, it is simply out of date — the statutory right does not depend on your employer having updated their policy.
No. Parental leave is entirely unpaid. There is no statutory parental pay and no benefit that steps in to replace the wages, which is why this page works out what the time costs you rather than what it pays.
The real cost is lower than the headline figure, because pay you do not receive is pay you are not taxed on. One week off a £32,000 salary costs about 72% of a week’s gross pay once the income tax and National Insurance you would have paid are taken into account.
One quirk worth knowing: a long block costs proportionally more, not less. Once enough unpaid weeks push your income below the Personal Allowance there is no more tax to save, so the later weeks cost closer to their full value.
Yes, and this is the part almost nobody flags. The entitlement does not taper off — it stops dead on the 18th birthday. Because only four weeks can be taken in any year, an older child leaves less time to use what is left.
A parent of a 16-year-old who has never used any parental leave has 18 weeks on paper but can only ever reach eight of them: two years at four weeks each. The other ten are gone. The calculator above works out what is genuinely reachable rather than what is nominally left.
The only way to recover stranded weeks is for your employer to agree to more than four in a year, which they are free to do. Ask early — it is a much easier conversation before you need the time.
Normally no — it has to be taken in whole weeks. There are two exceptions: your employer can agree to shorter periods, and if your child is disabled you have the right to take it a day at a time.
That exception makes the entitlement far more usable, since appointments and hospital visits rarely come in week-long blocks. It applies where the child receives Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment or Child Disability Payment.
Yes. The entitlement follows the child, not the job. If you took ten weeks with a previous employer, you have eight left with the new one — the counter does not reset.
This cuts both ways, and it means keeping your own record matters. No central system tracks it, employers can ask you to confirm what you have already used, and if you cannot say, you are relying on your own memory years after the event.
Yes. It is 18 weeks each, per child — not 18 weeks to share between you. Both parents can also take it at the same time if they want to, subject to each employer’s right to postpone.
You qualify if you are named on the child’s birth or adoption certificate, or if you have or expect to have parental responsibility. Foster parents qualify only where parental responsibility has been granted by a court.
No. They can only postpone it, for up to six months, and only where the absence would cause serious disruption to the business. If they postpone they must write to you within seven days giving the reason, and discuss alternative dates.
There is one thing they cannot postpone at all: leave you have asked to start on the date of the child’s birth or adoption placement. And they cannot postpone leave so far that it would fall after the child’s 18th birthday.
21 days, and your notice must state both the start and end dates. For a birth or adoption, that means 21 days before the week the child is expected. It does not have to be in writing unless your employer asks for it.
Your employer can ask for reasonable proof that you are the child’s parent — a birth certificate, for instance — but they cannot keep asking every time.
Unfortunately not. The April 2026 reform removed the service requirement, but it did not change who the right belongs to. Statutory parental leave is an employee right, and agency workers, contractors and the self-employed remain outside it.
Two things are still worth doing. First, check your actual employment status: a great many people labelled contractors or agency workers are legally employees, and status is decided by how the work is really done rather than by what the contract calls you. Acas explains the tests. Second, ask whether your employer offers anything contractual anyway — plenty extend family leave beyond the statutory minimum.
They are separate entitlements and you can use several of them:
Your employment continues throughout, so your continuous service keeps building and you return to the same job. Statutory annual leave carries on accruing during parental leave.
Pension is the one to check. Contributions are normally a percentage of pay, so while there is no pay there is usually nothing going in from either side — which is different from paid maternity leave, where the employer must keep contributing on your full salary. Schemes vary, so ask yours what happens over an unpaid block before you commit to a long one.
All free and independent:
It is unlawful to treat you badly for taking parental leave or for asking to. If a request is refused outright rather than postponed properly, that is worth raising — tribunal time limits are short.
If the child you care for has a long-term condition, there is a separate week a year with no age limit at all.
