Snow, storms or no trains: do you get paid if you cannot get to work?
No trains does not mean paid leave. But if your employer shuts the workplace, they usually still owe your wages. Get the decision in writing.
The supermarket stays open, but your bus has stopped running. The care home needs you, but the road is closed. You can lose a shift’s wages without choosing to miss a shift. The law draws a hard distinction between you being unable to get there and your employer stopping the work. Before you travel, ask which it is and get the answer in writing.
- £0
- automatic snow-day pay if the workplace stays open
- £41
- GB daily guarantee-pay cap from 6 April 2026
- 2 days
- usual notice for one day’s compulsory holiday
- Unpaid
- statutory emergency time off for dependants
The main rules below cover England, Wales and Scotland, as at 1 October 2026. Northern Ireland has separate employment law and its own guarantee-pay rate. We explain the differences below.
What to do this morning
- Contact your manager before the shift. Follow your absence-reporting procedure. Explain the actual obstacle, whether that is a cancelled train, a closed road or an unexpected school closure. Do not put yourself in danger to prove you tried.
- Save the evidence. Keep your rota, travel cancellations, school messages, official weather advice and your manager’s replies. Save copies somewhere you control.
- Ask who stopped the work. Is the site open, or has the employer closed it or cancelled your shift? If they say unpaid, ask for the policy or contract term that explains why.
- Agree an alternative if it works for you. Ask about home working, a later start, a shift swap or paid holiday. Get the hours and pay in writing. A carer or kitchen porter cannot do their shift on a laptop.
- Contact your union or an adviser. Ask your rep to challenge the missing pay or negotiate a paid bad-weather policy. Get advice before resigning. A grievance does not stop a tribunal deadline.
For an unexpected school closure, an employee can add: “The school has closed unexpectedly and there is no alternative care available. Need emergency time off for dependants to arrange care. Expect to be absent until [time].” Give an honest estimate and update your manager if it changes. The statutory time off is unpaid.
For union support, try Usdaw in retail, Unite or GMB in logistics and hospitality, UNISON or GMB in care and NHS support, and IWGB in delivery work. Our union finder can help. Free advice is available from Acas in GB, the LRA in NI, Citizens Advice or a law centre.
Who stopped the work
A travel cancellation and a workplace closure can look identical on your payslip. They do not have the same legal starting point. These are the usual employee rules, with the limits for casual and agency work below.
| What happened | Are you paid? | The condition |
|---|---|---|
| You cannot get in. The workplace is open. | Not automatically | A contract, policy or established custom can provide pay |
| Your employer closes the site, sends you home or cuts hours | Usually normal pay | You were ready, willing and able to work. Check any unpaid lay-off arrangement |
| Your employer cancels the transport it provides | Usually normal pay | You were ready, willing and able to work, unless your contract excludes pay |
| You are laid off without normal pay and qualify | Guarantee pay, up to £41 a day in GB | At least one month’s service. Limits on days apply. NI has its own rate |
| Your child’s school closes unexpectedly | Statutory time off is unpaid | Employees can take reasonable time to deal with the emergency and arrange care |
| A zero-hours or agency shift is cancelled | Depends on status and contract | No general statutory cancellation payment is in force |
| You are ill or injured and cannot work | Sick pay if you qualify | Being well but unable to travel is not sickness |
If the site stays open and you cannot get in
Acas is blunt. If the contract says nothing, the employer does not have to pay, because you are not fulfilling the contract. Snow, a cancelled train and a rail strike are the same rule while the site stays open.
A contract clause, bad-weather policy or established custom of paying can change that. Ask what happened in previous storms. One discretionary payment does not necessarily establish a contractual right.
Bad weather does not create an automatic right to work from home. If your employer agrees you can do your normal work remotely, those are working hours, not unpaid absence. If they refuse, and you neither attend nor work, the default remains no pay for the missed time.
You do not have a general legal duty to make up missed hours. Check your contract. If you agree to work another shift instead, confirm whether the missed shift will be paid and how the replacement hours will be treated. Do not leave payroll to decide after you have worked them.
Employer-provided transport is different. If the care-home minibus, farm bus or warehouse coach is cancelled, Acas says employees ready, willing and able to work are entitled to usual pay, unless the contract excludes pay in those circumstances.
If they close the site or send you home
If you were ready, willing and able to work, Acas says you are usually owed normal pay when your employer fully or partly closes the workplace, sends you home or cuts your hours. A shop assistant sent home after arriving for an eight-hour shift has not chosen to miss the rest of it. Withholding wages that are due can be an unlawful deduction under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
Check for a contractual right to unpaid lay-off or short-time working. Acas says the contract must be completely clear about when and how it applies. Your employer cannot simply announce a new clause on the morning of the closure. Nor does a supplier’s cancelled delivery automatically cancel your wages. Get advice before agreeing to an unpaid lay-off. See lay-off rights and, if your contract mentions it, force majeure clauses.
If you could not have reached the site even had it stayed open, do not assume the closure settles your pay entitlement. The “ready, willing and able” condition still matters. Record when the employer cancelled the work and what you could have done.
A freezing building or an icy yard is a safety question, not a commute. See workplace temperature and outdoor work.
Guarantee pay is not your wage
Statutory guarantee pay is a limited payment for eligible employees laid off without normal pay. It does not give an employer permission to stop paying your wages. In Great Britain, section 28 covers a workless day, when you would normally work but your employer provides no work.
From 6 April 2026, the daily cap is £41, or your normal daily pay if lower. The maximum is five days in any three months. If you normally work fewer than five days a week, that smaller number limits the days you can claim. You need at least one month’s continuous employment ending the day before the workless day. See section 31 and the 2026/27 rates.
Under section 29, you can lose entitlement by unreasonably refusing suitable alternative work or failing a reasonable requirement to remain available. The industrial-action exclusion concerns a lack of work caused by a dispute involving your employer’s employees or an associated employer’s employees. A rail strike that stops you reaching an open supermarket is instead the usual unpaid-commute rule.
Working part of the day does not turn the rest into a statutory guarantee-pay day. It is a workless-day scheme, not an hourly top-up. Check your contractual pay rights for shortened shifts. Workers who are not employees cannot claim this payment.
Can they call it holiday?
Your employer can ask you to use paid holiday. You may prefer that to losing wages. Requiring you to take it is different.
The usual Great Britain rule under regulation 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 is twice as much notice as the leave being required. One day needs two days’ notice. Two days need four. The notice must arrive before the relevant date. A same-morning “you’re on holiday today” does not meet that rule.
A relevant agreement, such as your contract or a collective agreement, can vary or exclude that notice rule. You can also agree to take holiday at short notice. Check the terms before challenging the instruction. Agricultural workers covered by Schedule 2 in Wales or Scotland have separate arrangements, so ask your union or adviser about the rules that apply to you.
For two days’ holiday on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October 2026, the relevant date is Sunday 11 October, four days before the first day. Under the default rule, notice must arrive before that Sunday. A Wednesday text is late. You do not have to agree just because your manager calls it holiday.
Statutory paid leave is normally 5.6 weeks a year. Your employer cannot borrow from next year’s statutory minimum to cover a closure. Acas says borrowing can only cover leave above that minimum. See holiday pay.
If the school closes
In Great Britain, section 57A gives employees reasonable time off to deal with an unexpected disruption of care arrangements or an unexpected incident at a child’s school. A sudden snow closure can qualify. Tell your employer as soon as reasonably practicable why you are absent and how long you expect to be away. There is no service requirement, but the statutory right is unpaid.
It covers dealing with the emergency and arranging care, not an automatic right to stay home for the whole closure. There is no fixed statutory one-day limit. nidirect’s bad-weather guidance says the rest of the day will probably be enough in many cases. What is reasonable depends on the circumstances.
Workers who are not employees do not have this employee right. But “zero-hours” does not settle your employment status. If your employer refuses the time off or punishes you for taking it, contact your union or Acas. Section 57B provides a complaint route for refusing the time off. Read our family-emergency guide for the protections and options when care takes longer to arrange.
Zero-hours, agency, and the £0 day
The first question is not whether your contract says “zero-hours”. It is whether you are an employee, a worker who is not an employee, or genuinely self-employed, and whether pay was already promised for the shift.
Employee
- Usually normal pay for an employer closure if ready, willing and able to work
- Guarantee pay when the statutory conditions are met
- Reasonable unpaid time off for an unexpected care emergency
- Health and safety dismissal protection without a service requirement
Worker who is not an employee
- Contractual pay may be due for an agreed shift
- No statutory guarantee pay or employee dependant-leave right
- Protection against unlawful deductions from wages that are due
- Protection against detriment for qualifying health and safety action
A confirmed booking or guaranteed-hours clause may give you a pay claim even if the employer calls the job casual. Keep the booking and check the cancellation terms. Genuinely self-employed people rely on their contract, not these employee entitlements. See cancelled shifts and zero-hours contracts.
For agency staff, check who pays you and what the agency or umbrella company promised. Equal treatment on basic pay and working conditions after 12 weeks in the same role does not, by itself, settle pay for a cancelled shift. Nor does a hirer’s closure prove that nothing is owed. The contract and your status matter. See agency-worker rights.
Can they discipline you, or make you drive?
A genuine travel problem does not make you immune from discipline. Follow the reporting procedure, explain what happened and offer workable alternatives. Your employer should investigate rather than assume you chose not to turn up. A fair process includes telling you the allegation and giving you a chance to answer. See fair disciplinary procedures.
As at 1 October 2026, ordinary unfair dismissal in Great Britain normally requires two years’ service. The government schedules a reduction to six months for dismissals from 1 January 2027. Qualifying health and safety dismissals already have no service requirement. Get advice before resigning, especially if your visa depends on the employer. See unfair dismissal.
The legal protection has conditions. Under section 44, workers must not suffer detriment for qualifying action over danger they reasonably believe is serious and imminent. This includes leaving or refusing to return to a dangerous workplace where they could not reasonably avert the danger, and taking appropriate protective steps. Workers who are not employees gained this protection on 31 May 2021.
For employees, dismissal for the corresponding reasons under section 100 can be automatically unfair, with no qualifying period and no cap on the compensatory award. That is not a guarantee of pay whenever you decide a journey is unsafe.
In Rodgers v Leeds Laser Cutting Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1659, paragraph 19, the Court of Appeal said the protection in section 100(1)(d) concerns perceived danger at the workplace, not on the journey to it. It did not say that every danger also present outside work is excluded. Refusing an unsafe delivery route as part of your job is different from being unable to make your ordinary commute. Changing the wording of your message does not change the facts. Get advice on the particular protection before treating a travel refusal as legally protected.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
England, Wales and Scotland share the main employment-pay rules discussed here. Scotland also has the Fair Work Charter for Severe Weather, developed by the Scottish Government and STUC in November 2018. It is voluntary guidance, not a separate statutory right to snow-day pay. Ask whether your employer follows it.
Northern Ireland has separate employment legislation. There are guarantee-pay and emergency dependant-leave rights, but do not use the GB £41 cap as the NI rate. Check the current rate and your entitlement with the Labour Relations Agency. nidirect gives the same basic commuting rule, no automatic pay if you cannot attend, unless your contract provides it.
Northern Ireland’s ordinary unfair-dismissal qualifying period remains one year. Do not apply the GB tribunal-limit or dismissal reforms to an NI claim. SSP is different. nidirect says eligible employees receive it from the first day off sick and links to GOV.UK for details. Use the LRA for your employment dispute. See Northern Ireland employment law.
What a lost day costs
Example: Asha on the tills
Asha is a 26-year-old employee on £12.71 an hour, the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over from 1 April 2026. She normally works five eight-hour paid shifts a week. Her contract has no paid bad-weather provision.
If the bus is cancelled but the store stays open, the missed shift costs 8 × £12.71 = £101.68. Five missed shifts cost £508.40.
If the store closes and she was ready, willing and able to work, she is usually owed those wages. With no valid basis for an unpaid lay-off, docking the day would be an unlawful deduction.
If a valid unpaid lay-off clause applies and she meets the guarantee-pay conditions, the daily payment is £41. For five eligible workless days, that is £205, leaving £303.40 of her usual week’s pay uncovered. The daily cap replaces about 40% of her normal shift pay.
If the weather leaves you unfit for work
A fall on ice that leaves you unable to work is sickness absence, not simply a failed commute. Report it under the sickness procedure. Eligible employees can receive SSP from the first qualifying day from 6 April 2026, at the lower of £123.25 a week or 80% of average weekly earnings. It does not cover someone who is well but stranded.
Example: sick pay for a nursery worker
A nursery worker has average earnings of £150 a week and five qualifying days. At 80%, the weekly SSP amount is £120, below the £123.25 cap. One qualifying sick day pays £120 ÷ 5 = £24. Contractual sick pay may be higher. See statutory sick pay.
If they dock the pay anyway
Ask payroll to correct the missing wages. Put the shift, hours, rate, reason for the closure and amount claimed in writing. Ask which term they rely on if they refuse. Keep your rota, contract, payslip and messages. Your union rep can raise the dispute with you and help other staff challenge the same deduction.
If it is not resolved, use the grievance procedure, but contact Acas promptly about early conciliation in Great Britain. Do not wait for the grievance outcome. The government confirms that the usual tribunal limit for most claims, including unlawful deductions, increased from three months to six on 1 October 2026. Do not assume that rescues an older claim. The payment date, claim type and transitional rules matter. See tribunal time limits and get advice on your actual deadline.
Scotland’s tribunal breach-of-contract limit is scheduled to change on 9 November 2026. That is not the same claim as an unlawful wage deduction. In Northern Ireland, use the LRA’s early-conciliation route and check the NI deadline. The GB six-month change is not a deadline for an NI claim.
Questions people ask
Do you get paid if snow stops you getting to work?
Not automatically if the workplace is open. A contract, weather policy or established custom can provide pay. Report the problem before your shift and ask for the pay decision in writing.
What if the employer closes the workplace?
Employees ready, willing and able to work are usually owed normal pay. Check any valid unpaid lay-off or short-time arrangement. Eligible employees can claim statutory guarantee pay for workless days, subject to its limits.
Can they make you use holiday at short notice?
The usual GB rule requires twice as much notice as the holiday being required. One day needs two days’ notice. A relevant agreement can change that rule, or you can agree to take leave sooner. Without either, a same-morning instruction is not valid notice.
Is a train strike different from snow?
Not for the ordinary commute to an open workplace. There is no automatic pay for the missed time. The guarantee-pay industrial-action exclusion instead concerns a lack of work caused by a dispute involving your employer’s employees or an associated employer’s employees.
Do you get paid when your child’s school closes?
The employee right to reasonable emergency time off is unpaid unless your contract or employer provides pay. An unexpected closure can qualify. Explain the care problem and expected absence promptly. There is no fixed statutory one-day limit, but the right is not leave for the whole closure.
Can you be sacked for not getting in?
Dismissal is not automatically unlawful. Ordinary unfair dismissal in GB normally needs two years’ service as at 1 October 2026. A reduction to six months is scheduled for dismissals from 1 January 2027. Qualifying health and safety dismissals need no service, but an unsafe commute does not automatically qualify.
Sources
- Travel, weather and other disruption getting to work, Acas
- Pay when there’s disruption, Acas
- Working Time Regulations 1998, regulation 15, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 13, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 28, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 29, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 31, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 44, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 57A, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 57B, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 100, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2026, legislation.gov.uk
- Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027, GOV.UK
- Statutory Sick Pay, GOV.UK
- Employment Rights Act timeline update, GOV.UK, September 2026
- Rodgers v Leeds Laser Cutting Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1659, Court of Appeal, The National Archives, especially paragraphs 19 and 20
- Travelling to work in bad weather, nidirect
- Sick pay rights, nidirect
- Severe weather employer guidelines, Scottish Government, November 2018
- The experience of insecure work, TUC, September 2026. Source for the 66% cancelled-shift finding
- Tribunal statistics, April to June 2026, Ministry of Justice, September 2026. Source for the 70,000 open single claims and 51% annual rise
- Free workplace advice and early conciliation, Acas, Great Britain
- Employment advice and early conciliation, Labour Relations Agency, Northern Ireland