How Statutory Sick Pay works after April 2026
Statutory Sick Pay is the legal minimum an employer pays when an eligible employee is off sick. From 6 April 2026 the weekly amount is £123.25, or 80 percent of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. GOV.UK states both limbs in those words. The flat rate is the uprated figure for the year. The percentage limb is what brings lower-paid employees into the scheme: someone whose average week is £100 receives £80, not £123.25, and someone whose average week is £400 receives the flat £123.25 because 80 percent of £400 is £320. The page applies that comparison before it looks at days. Tax and National Insurance can still be deducted from the payment. This calculator shows the SSP figure before those deductions.
The old lower earnings limit no longer decides eligibility for absences dealt with under the new rules. Before 6 April 2026 an employee generally needed average weekly earnings at or above £125, and SSP started on the fourth qualifying day. HMRC's guidance on absences that cross that date says the new rules remove the earnings floor and pay SSP from the first full day of sickness. This page follows that later rule only. It does not rebuild a waiting-day calculation, and it does not decide the special cases HMRC describes for people who were already off sick on 6 April 2026, including the protection for some people earning between £125 and £154.05 who were already receiving the old flat rate. If the absence started earlier, use HMRC's transitional note rather than this total.
SSP is paid for qualifying days, which are the days the employee normally works. A person who works Monday to Friday has five qualifying days in a week. A person who works three days has three. The weekly rate is divided by that number to get the rate for one qualifying day, and the sick days you count should be qualifying days only. A Saturday that is not a working day does not add a day's SSP just because it falls inside the absence. GOV.UK says you are paid for the full days you are off sick that you normally would have worked. On a five-day week the daily rate at the flat weekly amount is £24.65, and five such days come back to £123.25. The page rounds the daily rate to the penny and multiplies.
The maximum is 28 weeks. The page turns that into qualifying days by multiplying 28 by the days in a normal week, so a five-day week stops at 140 paid days and a three-day week stops at 84. Days beyond that cap are shown as unpaid by SSP. Linked periods of sickness can eat into the same 28 weeks. GOV.UK treats spells as linked when each lasts more than one full working day and the gap is 8 weeks or less. A continuous series of linked periods that lasts more than 3 years can end entitlement. This page does not store earlier spells. If some of the 28 weeks has already been paid in a linked absence, reduce the sick days you type, or treat the result as the sum for an isolated spell only.
Eligibility on the form is a single confirmation: the person is an employee and has done some work for this employer. Agency workers can be entitled. A person getting Statutory Maternity Pay is not entitled to SSP, and a person who has already had the maximum 28 weeks is not entitled again until the rules allow a fresh entitlement. You usually have to tell the employer by the deadline they set, or within 7 days if they set none. A fit note is required if you are off for more than 7 calendar days in a row, including days you do not work. The page does not check those notice and evidence rules. Losing SSP for a late notification is an employer conversation, not a line in this sum. Someone with two jobs may get SSP from each employer. Run the sum once per employment, with that job's earnings and qualifying days.
Average weekly earnings are the employer's calculation, normally over 8 weeks. A new starter who has not yet been paid for 8 weeks can still qualify, and GOV.UK tells the employee to ask the employer how the average was worked out. Type the figure they use. Do not type a salary that includes a one-off bonus unless the employer has included it in the statutory average. Occupational sick pay is separate. Many contracts pay full wages for a period and use SSP as a floor or offset it. This page never subtracts company sick pay and never adds it. It is the statutory amount only, for the qualifying days you enter, under the post-6 April 2026 rate. If the number looks wrong, the usual path GOV.UK describes is to talk to the employer and then to the HMRC enquiry line.