How statutory redundancy pay is counted
Statutory redundancy pay is the legal minimum for an employee who is made redundant after two complete years with the same employer. GOV.UK sets three bands, and they depend on how old you were, not on a single rate for the whole career. You get half a week's pay for each full year you were under 22, one week's pay for each full year you were 22 or older but under 41, and one and a half week's pay for each full year you were 41 or older. Length of service is capped at 20 years. The page takes the age you type as the age at the relevant date, usually the day the notice period ends, and walks backwards one year at a time. A year is placed in a band by the age at the start of that year. That is what makes a 45-year-old's recent service four years at one and a half weeks, not five.
Acas publishes the same bands and a worked example this page is locked to. A 45-year-old employee with 22 years' service and a normal week of £300 gets one and a half week's pay for four years and one week's pay for sixteen years. Two of the twenty-two years fall outside the 20-year cap, so they add nothing. The total is 22 weeks, and 22 times £300 is £6,600. The four years at the higher band are the years that started at ages 41, 42, 43 and 44. The year that started at 40 is still in the middle band, because the person was not 41 for that whole year. If you are 42 with only two complete years, the page gives one and a half weeks for the year that started at 41 and one week for the year that started at 40.
From 6 April 2026 a week's pay for this purpose is capped at £751, and the most statutory redundancy pay can be is £22,530. GOV.UK states both figures for redundancies on or after that date. Earlier dates used a lower cap. £22,530 is exactly 30 weeks at £751, and 30 weeks is what you get from 20 years that all fall in the one-and-a-half band, which is a person who was already 41 at the start of the oldest year inside the cap. A younger person cannot reach 30 weeks. The page uses your typed weekly pay when it is £751 or less, and £751 when it is more, and it says when the cap has been applied. It does not know whether your relevant date was before 6 April 2026. If it was, the older cap applies and this total is too high.
Weekly pay is not always this week's wage. GOV.UK says it is the average you earned per week over the 12 weeks before the day you were given redundancy notice. If pay changes from week to week, Acas says to average a 12-week period and to replace a week you did not work, for example a week of holiday or sickness, with an earlier week. Overtime, commission and bonus may count when the contract treats them as pay. A week on furlough during the coronavirus scheme is based on normal pay, not the reduced furlough pay. This page does not rebuild that average. Type the weekly figure you and the employer would use, gross, before tax and National Insurance. The statutory redundancy payment itself is not taxed as earnings in the ordinary case, but other sums paid at the same time, such as pay in lieu of notice, can be. Those other sums are not in this total.
Two complete years is a hard floor. One year and eleven months is not enough, and the page pays zero rather than a fraction of a year. Part years are dropped before the age bands run. Someone whose birthday falls during the job is why the walk backwards matters: the band can change inside the 20 years. Someone who started work before they were 22 can have a mixture of half weeks and full weeks. The page will still compute if the years you type are longer than your age, but that history cannot be real, and the early years simply fall into the under-22 band. Check the age and the years before you rely on a mixed result.
Plenty of redundancies pay nothing under the statute even after two years. GOV.UK lists a job that continues, suitable alternative work that you refuse without a good reason, and dismissal for misconduct. Crown servants, members of the armed forces, the police, some domestic servants in the employer's family, and some apprentices are outside the scheme. A lay-off can lead to a redundancy claim in specific week-counts, with its own notice steps. A contract or a collective agreement can promise enhanced redundancy that is higher than the statutory weeks. This page never adds an enhancement. It is the statutory weeks, at the capped weekly pay, for a relevant date on or after 6 April 2026. You have six months from the date the job ends to apply if the employer does not pay. The official calculator on GOV.UK is the place to cross-check a date-of-birth case before a dispute.