How Statutory Maternity Pay is worked out
Statutory Maternity Pay is paid by the employer for up to 39 weeks if the employee qualifies. GOV.UK's employer guide splits those weeks in two. The first six weeks are 90 percent of average weekly earnings before tax, with no cap. The remaining 33 weeks are the lower of £194.32 and 90 percent of average weekly earnings. The same split is in the 2026-27 rates and thresholds for employers, and in HMRC's statutory payments manual, which labels the £194.32 figure as the 2026-27 standard rate. Tax and National Insurance are deducted from SMP. This page does not deduct them, because that depends on the rest of the year's pay and on the tax code. The take-home page is the place for Income Tax and employee National Insurance on a salary.
Average weekly earnings are not a figure you are free to smooth across the whole pregnancy. The employer averages gross earnings over a period of at least eight weeks, up to and including the last payday before the end of the qualifying week. The qualifying week is the 15th week before the week the baby is due. GOV.UK publishes a table of qualifying weeks for 2026 due dates. This calculator does not look that table up. It takes the average you type, which should already be the employer's average, and it asks you to confirm that the employment tests are met. Those tests include 26 weeks of continuous employment into the qualifying week, earnings at least at the lower earnings limit, and notice. Agency workers, directors and some education jobs have extra rules the employer guide points to. The checkbox is a gate, not a substitute for those rules.
The lower earnings limit for 2026-27 is £129 a week. That is the figure in the National Insurance rates and allowances publication, in the weekly threshold table for 2026 to 2027. SMP uses the lower earnings limit in force on the Saturday at the end of the qualifying week. If that Saturday falls in 2025-26, the older limit of £125 can be the one that matters. This page uses £129, and it says so. Average weekly earnings of £128.99 produce no SMP. Earnings of £129 produce 90 percent, which is £116.10, and because that is below £194.32 the same £116.10 is the rate for every week, not only the first six.
A higher average uses both rates. On £400 a week, 90 percent is £360. The first six weeks are £360. From week seven the flat £194.32 is lower than £360, so the remaining weeks are £194.32. Thirty-nine weeks are six times £360 plus 33 times £194.32, which is £8,572.56. On £200 a week, 90 percent is £180, which is already below £194.32, so all 39 weeks stay at £180 and the total is £7,020. The weeks box lets you stop early. Stopping at six weeks pays only the 90 percent slice. It does not bring the flat rate forward.
Employers can recover some or all of the SMP from HMRC. The 2026-27 recovery rate is 92 percent if Class 1 National Insurance for the previous tax year, employee and employer together, was above £45,000. It is 109 percent if that National Insurance was £45,000 or lower. The small-employer box switches between those two rates and shows the recovery next to the employee's SMP. Recovery is the employer's, not an extra payment to the employee. Statutory Sick Pay cannot be recovered under this rule. The 92 and 109 figures are only about SMP and the other parental statutory payments listed on the rates page.
The annual uprating does not always land on 6 April for someone already being paid. The statutory payments manual says the maternity-related uprating takes effect on the next full payment week, unless that week starts on a Sunday. A payment week that straddles 5 April 2026 can still be on the old standard rate for its whole week. This page applies £194.32 to every week you count. If the maternity pay period started before the uprating, the employer may have a week at the previous standard rate. That transitional week is not modelled.
Contractual maternity pay can be higher, and SMP is usually counted towards it rather than stacked on top without looking at the contract. Shared parental pay, paternity pay, adoption pay and neonatal care pay use the same £194.32 standard rate in 2026-27, but the six weeks at 90 percent is a maternity and adoption pattern, not the pattern for every one of those payments. This page is only SMP. It also does not decide the start date. SMP usually cannot start before the 11th week before the week the baby is due, and it is lost if the employee does not give the required notice. The total is the statutory amount for the weeks you asked for, at the 2026-27 rates, after you have said the tests are met.