Maternity pay calculator

Statutory Maternity Pay runs for 39 weeks and comes in two parts. The first 6 weeks are paid at 90% of your average weekly earnings, with no upper limit. The remaining 33 weeks are paid at £194.32 a week or 90% of your earnings, whichever is lower.

That step down is the thing people are most often caught out by. For anyone earning above about £11,227 a year, week seven is a sharp drop — and it arrives roughly when the visitors stop coming and the nappies do not.

Maternity leave itself runs to 52 weeks. Pay stops at 39, so the last 13 weeks are unpaid. A great many people do not realise this until they are planning the end of their leave.

Maternity Allowance is the scheme for people SMP does not cover — the self-employed, and anyone without 26 weeks of service with the same employer by the 15th week before the due date. It pays up to £194.32 a week for up to 39 weeks, and it has no 90% opening stretch. For a higher earner that difference alone is worth several thousand pounds, which is why the service question on this page is not a formality.

• Take-home pay. Every figure here is gross. Statutory Maternity Pay has income tax and National Insurance taken off in the normal way, and what actually comes off depends on your tax code, the rest of your year’s earnings, your pension and any student loan. Those are not guessed at here, because a take-home figure produced without them would look precise and be wrong.
• Whether you definitely qualify. This applies the published earnings tests, but eligibility turns on employment history that only you and HMRC can see. GOV.UK is the authority, not this page.
• Your employer’s own scheme. Many top SMP up to full pay for a period, sometimes with a condition about returning to work. It is worth asking HR before you plan around the statutory figure — the field above takes the answer if you have it.
• Shared Parental Leave, or anything for the other parent. Both exist and both change the picture. Neither is modelled here.

Bring the big purchases forward. The car seat, the cot and the pushchair are the bulk of what you spend, and they are wanted before the birth — which is while you are usually still on full pay. Buying them in the months your income is normal, rather than in the months it is £194.32 a week, is the single most useful thing this page can tell you.

Apply for funded childcare in good time. In England applications for the funded hours open from 23 weeks of pregnancy, and the entitlement begins at nine months old. Leaving it until you need the place is how families end up paying full price for a term.