Parental bereavement leave and pay: Jack’s Law explained

If your child has died, text or email your employer now: say you need Jack’s Law leave, give the date you want it to start and the date your child died, and say whether you want one or two weeks. You do not need a death certificate. Eligible employees get two weeks away from work. Pay is a separate claim, with a deadline that can arrive while you are still trying to get through the week.

What Jack’s Law covers

In Great Britain, Jack’s Law covers the death of a child under 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy, on or after 6 April 2020. Each eligible employee gets two weeks per child. If both parents qualify, each gets two weeks; if twins die, each eligible parent gets four. The leave regulations set out the entitlement.

There is no general statutory right to leave specifically to grieve for a partner, parent, sibling or adult child in Great Britain. Employees can take reasonable unpaid time off when a dependant dies, including to arrange or attend a funeral. Your employer’s compassionate-leave policy may offer more. A wider unpaid bereavement right is scheduled for April 2027, but it is not available yet.

A week of leave covers the days you would normally work in that week. If you work only Monday and Tuesday, two weeks’ leave means four working days off, not ten. Statutory pay is calculated for seven-day periods, which need not start on a Monday.

Who qualifies as a bereaved parent

Leave is a day-one right for employees. England, Scotland and Wales have the same rules. You do not need 26 weeks’ service to take leave; that test applies to statutory pay.

The qualifying relationships are broader than biological parenthood:

• You are the child’s biological or adoptive parent. You can also qualify before the adoption order if the child was placed with you for adoption and the placement has not ended or been disrupted. For an overseas adoption, the child must be living with you after entering the UK and you must have official notification approving the adoption.
• You are a parent through surrogacy. A parental order must have been made, or you must have applied or intended to apply within six months of the birth and expected the court to grant it.
• You are the partner of a qualifying parent or carer, living with them and the child in an enduring family relationship. The regulations exclude specified relatives, including the parent’s parent, grandparent, sibling, aunt or uncle, from this partner route.
• You or your partner had day-to-day responsibility for the child, subject to the rules below.

Kinship and foster carers

To qualify through day-to-day care, the child must have lived in your home for at least four continuous weeks ending with the death, with you or your partner responsible for their care. Temporary or intermittent absences do not break that period. This route is excluded if a parent or another person with parental responsibility also lived in the household.

Being paid or entitled to payment for the care usually excludes you. Exceptions include a local-authority foster fee or allowance, reimbursement of care expenses, and payments under a will or trust for the child’s care. Check the qualifying relationships on GOV.UK.

Stillbirth, miscarriage and a baby born alive

In Great Britain, miscarriage before 24 weeks does not itself give you maternity, paternity or parental bereavement leave. You may need sick leave to recover, or compassionate leave under your employer’s policy. Northern Ireland covers miscarriage under its own rules.

After a stillbirth at the qualifying stage, eligible parents retain their maternity or paternity rights as well as parental bereavement leave. If a baby is born alive and then dies, the child-death rules apply whatever the stage of pregnancy. Acas explains the distinction.

Two weeks, taken when you need them

Your leave can start on or after the death or stillbirth and must finish within 56 weeks of that date. Take two weeks together, two separate one-week blocks, or just one week. You cannot use the ordinary entitlement as individual days.

If you are already on maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave, your bereavement leave must start after that leave ends. It need not follow immediately. You can also take it between blocks of shared parental leave booked before the death.

If another statutory leave interrupts bereavement leave, you can take the unused balance afterwards, including any part-week left over. It must be one consecutive period, with fresh notice, and must still finish within the original 56-week window. Regulation 8 covers interrupted leave.

What notice to give

You do not have to give notice in writing or provide a death certificate. A call, voicemail, text or email is enough. Once you qualify and give the correct notice, your employer cannot refuse the leave or choose different dates.

1. Leave starting in the first eight weeks. Tell your employer before you would normally start work on the first day of the week you want off. If you are coming off a night shift or cannot manage a call, a text or email is enough. If notice on time is not reasonably practicable, tell them as soon as reasonably practicable afterwards.
2. Leave starting after the first eight weeks. Give at least one week’s notice. The same rule applies to a second week booked separately.
3. Give the details. Tell your employer the date of death or stillbirth, when you want the leave to start, and whether you want one or two weeks.

If you have already started work on the day you give notice to begin leave immediately, the statutory leave starts the following day. Ask your employer about time off for the rest of that shift. Regulations 6 and 7 set out the notice and start rules.

To cancel a booked week in the first eight weeks, tell your employer no later than your normal start time on its first day. For a later week, give at least one week’s notice of cancellation. You cannot cancel a week once it has begun. Rebook any unused entitlement with fresh notice within the 56-week window.

What you will be paid

Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay, or SPBP, is £194.32 a week or 90% of your average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, from 6 April 2026. Your employer pays it through payroll with the usual tax and National Insurance deductions. An employer’s policy may top it up to full pay. GOV.UK explains the payment.

In Great Britain, as well as meeting the relationship rules, you must:

• Have at least 26 weeks’ continuous employment ending with the relevant week. This is the Sunday-to-Saturday week immediately before the week of the death or stillbirth.
• Still be employed on the date of death or stillbirth.
• Have average gross weekly earnings of at least £129, the lower earnings limit for 2026/27, over the relevant earnings period.

The earnings calculation normally uses at least eight weeks, ending with the last normal payday before the week of the death or stillbirth. It does not necessarily end on the relevant Saturday. Monthly pay and irregular pay need the payroll calculation in regulation 19. Ask payroll for its calculation if you are close to the threshold.

The earnings threshold is the one in force at the end of the relevant week. If the bereavement happened in an earlier tax year, an earlier threshold may apply even though you take leave now. Section 171ZZ6 fixes that reference date.

Claim pay separately from leave

Give your employer your name, the dates you are claiming for and the date of death or stillbirth in writing. With your first claim, include a declaration confirming your qualifying relationship to the child. You can use HMRC’s declaration form, your own written declaration or your employer’s form. No death certificate is required.

Make the claim within 28 days starting with the first day of the week you are claiming for. If you book two weeks together, claim both at once rather than wait until the second week. If giving notice on time was not reasonably practicable, regulation 8 allows notice as soon as reasonably practicable. A missed deadline is not automatically the end of your claim. Tell payroll promptly why you could not meet it. GOV.UK lists the information to send.

If you qualify and an employer withholds statutory pay, we call that wage theft. It is not a discretionary favour. Ask payroll for its calculation in writing and keep the reply, rota, payslips and your claim. The 28-day claim window is ticking from the first day of each week claimed.

If you are not an employee

Statutory leave requires employee status. Statutory pay uses a different definition, an “employed earner” whose employment falls within the Class 1 National Insurance rules. You do not have to earn enough to make actual National Insurance deductions for this definition to apply.

If you are an agency worker, the payer responsible for PAYE and Class 1 contributions is normally responsible for SPBP if you meet the qualifying conditions. You can still qualify if no work was offered or you were unavailable. HMRC explains the employment types covered.

With two employers, claim from each separately if you qualify with each. You can book different dates with each employer. If you have two jobs with one employer and your earnings are combined for National Insurance, you get one entitlement to statutory pay and should take the same dates off both jobs. If contributions are calculated separately, separate pay entitlements may apply.

The self-employed get neither leave nor SPBP. Check your contracts and any income-protection insurance instead.

Your rights while on leave

Your holiday continues to accrue, and you keep your contractual benefits apart from ordinary wages or salary. You retain entitlement to pay rises you would otherwise receive. Taking parental bereavement leave on its own gives you the right to return to the same job on no less favourable terms.

The return rules differ if you combine it with other statutory leave. If the consecutive leave includes more than four weeks of ordinary parental leave, or relevant statutory leave for the same child totals more than 26 weeks, your employer can offer a suitable, appropriate alternative job if returning you to the original job is not reasonably practicable. Regulations 10 and 11 set out those exceptions.

Your employer must not penalise you for taking or seeking the leave, or because it thinks you are likely to take it. Dismissal for those reasons is automatically unfair. If leave is refused or you are treated badly, keep the messages and dates. Speak to your union, such as UNISON in care or health, Unite in hospitality, USDAW in retail, or GMB in warehousing and delivery. Citizens Advice, a local law centre and Acas can also help. If you may need an employment tribunal, contact Acas for early conciliation promptly: most claims have a three-months-less-a-day time limit, and early conciliation can affect the deadline. You can also raise a grievance. For a separate minimum-wage underpayment, report it to HMRC’s minimum wage complaints service; that is not a substitute for claiming SPBP.

Check how your employer’s compassionate-leave policy works alongside the statutory right. More generous contractual leave may cover the same period; the law does not always give you two extra weeks on top. Your employer cannot use its policy to take away your statutory protection. Regulation 15 deals with overlapping contractual rights.

Northern Ireland covers more losses

Northern Ireland has separate employment law. For deaths and stillbirths from 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2026, the earlier rules continue to apply. For bereavements on or after 6 April 2026, miscarriage is also covered and the 26-week service test for statutory pay has gone. nidirect explains the current rules.

The Northern Ireland definition includes spontaneous pregnancy loss before completion of 24 weeks and medically assessed interventions necessary to protect the pregnant person’s physical or mental health, or to address a fatal fetal abnormality or severe fetal impairment. The right also covers qualifying biological or intended parents and the pregnant person’s partner. Losses experienced or detected from 6 April 2026 are covered; the new right is not retrospective. SR 2026/63 sets out the definition and relationships.

Day-one pay does not mean unconditional pay. Section 167ZZ9 of the Northern Ireland benefits Act retains the lower earnings limit. It can be met over any continuous eight-week period within the window spanning the eight weeks before the week of bereavement and the eight weeks beginning with that week. Earnings after the loss can be reasonably expected earnings, calculated under SR 2026/74. A new starter need not have eight weeks of payslips. If pay is refused because you have just joined, ask the employer to check the expected-earnings rules.

For a miscarriage, the 56-week leave window runs from when it occurred or was discovered. Check our Northern Ireland guide before relying on Great Britain employment advice.

Wider unpaid leave is scheduled for April 2027

The Employment Rights Act 2025 provides for wider bereavement leave in Great Britain, including pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. Section 18 was brought into force on 6 January 2026 for regulation-making purposes, not to give employees the wider leave immediately. The commencement regulations confirm that limit.

The planned right covers spouses, civil partners, partners in committed long-term relationships whether or not they live together, parents, adult children and siblings. It includes biological, adoptive, step and half relationships, and equivalent parental relationships for employees raised in kinship or foster care.

For pregnancy loss, the planned right covers the person who was pregnant, qualifying partners, the other parent, intended co-parents and intended parents through surrogacy. The policy includes miscarriage, ectopic and molar pregnancy loss, terminations and unsuccessful IVF embryo transfers before 24 weeks. It does not include IVF embryo loss before transfer.

Under the announced policy, you could take single days within 56 weeks of the loss or learning of it. For leave in the first eight weeks, notice would be before your normal start time or as soon as reasonably practicable afterwards; later leave would require one week’s notice. No evidence of loss would be required. Employees would be protected from detriment or dismissal for taking the leave. There is no planned statutory pay for this wider right.

1. 6 Apr 2020Jack’s Law starts in Great Britain

   Two weeks’ parental bereavement leave, with statutory pay for those who qualify.

2. 6 Apr 2022Northern Ireland introduces its own right

   Leave and pay for qualifying child deaths and stillbirths.

3. 6 Jan 2026Powers for wider Great Britain leave commence

   Ministers can make regulations. The wider leave itself is not yet available.

4. 6 Apr 2026Northern Ireland extends coverage

   Qualifying miscarriage is covered and the service test for pay is removed.

5. Apr 2027Wider unpaid leave scheduled in Great Britain

   The government plans to implement the new right through secondary legislation.

The government says the new right builds on existing parental bereavement leave. Its announced wider-family policy covers adult children; Jack’s Law already covers children under 18. Do not assume the proposed single-day flexibility or wider relationships apply to today’s entitlement. See our Employment Rights Act 2025 guide for the wider timetable.

Questions people ask

Do both parents get leave?

Yes, if each is an eligible employee, each has their own two-week entitlement. Each parent’s pay eligibility is assessed separately. You do not have to share two weeks between you.

Can the two weeks be split?

Yes. Take two weeks together, two separate one-week blocks, or only one week. Your leave must finish within 56 weeks of the death or stillbirth. The ordinary entitlement cannot be split into individual days.

Does it cover miscarriage?

In Great Britain, miscarriage before 24 weeks does not itself qualify for parental bereavement leave. Northern Ireland covers qualifying miscarriages experienced or detected from 6 April 2026. Wider unpaid pregnancy-loss leave is scheduled for Great Britain in April 2027, but is not in force yet.

Can an employer refuse or delay it?

Not if you qualify and give the required notice. Your employer cannot choose your dates, require a death certificate for leave, or penalise you for exercising the right. Written information and a declaration are needed separately for statutory pay.

What if two children die?

You get a separate entitlement for each child. If twins die, an eligible employee gets four weeks, and four weeks of statutory pay if the pay conditions are met. Each entitlement has its own 56-week window from that child’s death.

Are Scotland and Wales different from England?

No. The parental bereavement leave and pay rules are the same across Great Britain. Northern Ireland has separate rules, including miscarriage coverage and day-one eligibility for pay subject to its other conditions.

Sources

1. Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay and Leave, GOV.UK
2. What you’re entitled to, GOV.UK
3. Check if you’re eligible, GOV.UK
4. How to claim, GOV.UK
5. How different employment types affect SPBP, HMRC
6. Rates and thresholds for employers, 2026/27, HMRC
7. Employers’ guide to parental bereavement pay and leave, GOV.UK, updated 30 September 2026
8. National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates from April 2026, Low Pay Commission and GOV.UK, 26 November 2025
9. Ending one-sided flexibility, TUC, 11 August 2026
10. Make a claim to an employment tribunal, GOV.UK
11. Employment tribunal time limits, Acas
12. Pay and work rights complaints, GOV.UK
13. Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, legislation.gov.uk
14. Parental Bereavement Leave Regulations 2020, SI 2020/249, legislation.gov.uk
15. Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (General) Regulations 2020, SI 2020/233, legislation.gov.uk. Original text for claim and calculation rules; use current HMRC guidance for uprated amounts.
16. Parental bereavement leave and pay for bereavements on or after 6 April 2026, nidirect
17. Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992, section 167ZZ9, legislation.gov.uk
18. Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay (Miscarriage) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2026, SR 2026/63, legislation.gov.uk
19. Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (Employment and Earnings) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2026, SR 2026/74, legislation.gov.uk
20. Employment Rights Act 2025, section 18, legislation.gov.uk
21. Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 1 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/3, legislation.gov.uk
22. New rights for family bereavement and pregnancy loss, GOV.UK, 22 September 2026
23. Make Work Pay: leave for bereavement including pregnancy loss, government response, GOV.UK, 22 September 2026
24. Time off for bereavement, Acas