Family Leave Policies Just Got More Complex — Here’s What to Update From April 2026

The 6th of April 2026 isn’t just the start of a new tax year. For UK employers, it’s the date five family leave reforms arrive at once.

If your policies still reference a 26-week qualifying period for paternity leave, a one-year rule for unpaid parental leave, or simply don’t mention Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave at all, you’re out of compliance as of today.

This is the family leave deep-dive companion to our Employment Rights Act 2025 employer compliance guide. That guide covers the full ERA 2025 timeline. This one focuses specifically on what’s changing in the area where most employers are least prepared: family leave.

Here’s what you need to know, and what you need to update.

The 5 family leave changes from the 6th of April 2026

Before getting into the details, here’s the full picture.

#	Change	What’s new
1	Paternity leave	Day-one right — 26-week rule removed
2	Unpaid parental leave	Day-one right — one-year rule removed
3	Paternity leave after shared parental leave	Employees can now take paternity leave after SPL
4	Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave	Brand-new statutory right, up to 52 weeks
5	Statutory pay rates	All family leave pay rises to £194.32/week

None of these are minor admin tweaks. Together, they represent the biggest expansion of family leave rights since shared parental leave was introduced in 2015.

Change 1: Paternity leave is now a day-one right — but there’s a catch

From the 6th of April 2026, employees no longer need 26 weeks’ continuous service to qualify for paternity leave. The right kicks in from their first day.

Around 32,000 more fathers per year will now access paternity leave that wasn’t available to them before. That’s a significant shift, and one your onboarding documentation needs to reflect immediately.

But there’s a distinction every HR manager and payroll team needs to understand clearly: day-one leave does not mean day-one pay.

The qualifying period for Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) is unchanged. To receive SPP, an employee still needs to meet the continuous service and earnings requirements. New starters who qualify for the leave but not the pay will take unpaid paternity leave at statutory level, unless your enhanced pay policy explicitly extends to new joiners.

Simon Obee, Head of HR Advisory at Employment Hero, flags this as the most likely source of manager error: 

“The new distinction between the entitlement to statutory paternity leave and to statutory paternity pay is likely to be where employers become unstuck. Just because someone with less than 26 weeks’ service isn’t entitled to paternity pay, won’t mean they aren’t eligible to paternity leave. If managers aren’t briefed properly on this, they risk unlawfully refusing legitimate paternity leave requests”.

However, newly joined employees who can’t meet the standard 15-week-before-due-date notice requirement have a temporary 28-day notice provision. Employees who can meet the standard rule must still use it.

What to update:

• Paternity leave policy: remove the 26-week clause, add the day-one entitlement and 28-day transitional notice rule.
• Employment contracts: check for any clause still referencing the qualifying period and revise.
• Onboarding documentation: new starters should know their rights from day one.
• Your employee handbook. 

Now’s also the time to decide whether your enhanced paternity pay applies from day one. You’re legally permitted to maintain a service threshold for your contractual top-up. The day-one right covers the leave itself, not any enhanced element you offer above statutory.

Change 2: Unpaid parental leave — the one-year rule is gone

The qualifying period for unpaid parental leave has been removed. Previously, your people needed a full year’s service before they could take it. From the 6th of April 2026, it’s available from their first day.

The entitlement itself is unchanged: 18 weeks’ unpaid leave per child (up to age 18), capped at 4 weeks per year. Around 1.5 million additional parents gain this flexibility immediately (GOV.UK, January 2026).

What to update:

• Your unpaid parental leave policy.
• Your employee handbook. 

Remove any reference to the one-year threshold, and make sure managers know this applies to their newest team members too.

Change 3: The shared parental leave sequencing problem is finally fixed

This one has frustrated HR professionals and employment lawyers alike for years.

Under the old rules, any employee who took shared parental leave (SPL) first automatically forfeited their paternity leave entitlement. The very act of trying to share childcare between two parents could cost one of them two weeks of leave they’d otherwise have had. It made no sense, and it penalised families for being flexible.

From the 6th of April 2026 (for babies due on or after the 5th of April 2026), paternity leave and Statutory Paternity Pay can be taken after a period of shared parental leave. The sequencing restriction is removed.

Shared parental leave entitlements themselves are unchanged. The SPL qualifying period of 26 weeks’ service is also unchanged. This fix is specifically about removing the forfeit rule.

What to update: 

• Your shared parental leave policy. Remove the restriction. 
• Your employee handbook. 

Brief your HR team and any managers who advise parents on leave options, the old rules may be well embedded in how people think about this.

Change 4: A brand-new right — Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave

This is the change most employers are least prepared for. It comes from separate legislation (the Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave Regulations 2026, SI 2026/237, laid 10 March 2026), and there’s no predecessor right to build on.

It fills a genuine gap. Before the 6th of April 2026, a partner whose co-parent died shortly after the birth of a child had no statutory leave entitlement. Whatever support they received came down entirely to their employer’s goodwill. That’s now changed.

Who it covers: the partner of a mother, primary adopter, or surrogacy intended parent who dies within the first year of a child’s life.

The entitlement: up to 52 weeks’ leave, taken in one block, within 52 weeks of the child’s birth, adoption placement, or entry to the UK. If the death occurs less than 14 days before the end of the 52-week window, the employee can still take 14 days of leave.

Qualifying period: none. This is a day-one right.

Pay: unpaid at statutory level. There’s no Bereaved Partner’s Statutory Paternity Pay but employers can choose to offer enhanced pay.

Notice rules:

• Within 8 weeks of the death: verbal notice before work is due to start that day is sufficient
• More than 8 weeks after the death: a minimum of one week’s written notice

Keeping in touch: up to 10 KIT days are permitted during the leave.

If the child also dies: the employee can still take up to 8 weeks of this leave, so long as they have not taken any bereaved partner’s paternity leave for the same child..

Combining with other leave: this right can sit alongside paternity leave, shared parental leave, unpaid parental leave and neonatal care leave.

This isn’t just a compliance exercise. These are the moments in a person’s working life where your response as an employer defines your culture far more than any policy document does. Getting the process right matters. So does getting the human response right.

Simon Obee, Head of HR Advisory at Employment Hero, points out that the notice rules themselves carry a deliberate message: 

“The notice rules in this legislation are not accidental. Allowing employees to just give verbal notice that they want to take leave is a deliberate decision to remove procedural barriers at the point where following complicated processes are likely to be the last thing on someone’s mind. Employers need to understand that the law is telling them something here: lead with humanity first, and make sure your managers know they have the authority to do that.”

What to create:

• A dedicated Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave policy, or a clearly labelled section within your existing bereavement or paternity policy.
• A new leave category in your HR system (variable length, one block, unpaid).
• A manager briefing: these conversations require sensitivity, clarity and preparation.

Change 5: Statutory pay rates rise to £194.32/week

All statutory family leave pay rates increase from the 6th of April 2026. Here’s the full picture:

Payment	2025/26	2026/27
Statutory Maternity Pay (weeks 7–39)	£187.18/week	£194.32/week
Statutory Paternity Pay	£187.18/week	£194.32/week
Statutory Adoption Pay	£187.18/week	£194 .32/week
Statutory Shared Parental Pay	£187.18/week	£194.32/week
Statutory Neonatal Care Pay	£187.18/week	£194.32/week
Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay	£187.18/week	£194.32/week
Lower Earnings Limit (LEL)	£125/week	£129/week

The LEL is the minimum average weekly earnings an employee must meet to qualify for any of the above payments. It increases from £125 to £129/week.

On recovery: if your total Class 1 NI bill in the previous tax year was under £45,000, you qualify for Small Employers’ Relief and can recover 108.5% of statutory payments from HMRC. Above that threshold, the recovery rate is 92%.

Neonatal care leave: one year in, here’s what employers still get wrong

Neonatal care leave came into force on the 6th of April 2025. The structure of the leave isn’t changing in April 2026, only the pay rate increases to £194.32/week, in line with all other statutory family pay rates.

But after a year in operation, there are still real points of confusion worth clearing up.

• Neonatal care leave applies when a baby requires seven or more consecutive days of neonatal care within the first 28 days of life. 
• Eligible parents can take up to 12 weeks of additional leave, on top of their usual maternity, paternity, or adoption leave. 
• It’s a day-one right, and leave must be taken within 68 weeks of birth.

The key word is “additional.” Neonatal care leave is separate from maternity or paternity leave, not a subset of it. It adds to whatever other leave your people are entitled to. Some employers are still treating it as an extension of existing leave rather than a standalone right, which creates both compliance risk and genuine hardship for families in a very difficult situation.

If your HR system or leave policy doesn’t yet have neonatal care leave as a distinct category, fix that now alongside your April 2026 updates.

Your April 2026 family leave compliance checklist

Use this as your starting point for everything that needs to be done or decided before the 6th of April.

Policies to update:

• Paternity leave policy: remove 26-week clause, add day-one entitlement and 28-day transitional notice provision for new starters.
• Unpaid parental leave policy: remove the one-year service threshold.
• Shared parental leave policy: remove the post-SPL paternity leave forfeiture rule.
• Create a Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave policy (or add it as a clearly labelled section in your bereavement or paternity policy).
• Update your bereavement policy to reference the new right.
• Update your employee handbook.

Payroll to update:

• Check your payroll software has updated to the new statutory rates: £194.32/week across all family leave pay types.
• Update your new policy document to reflect the new Lower Earnings Limit: £129/week.
• Confirm your system can process leave for employees with zero days’ service.

HR system to update:

• Remove the 26-week service block on paternity leave eligibility.
• Remove the one-year service block on unpaid parental leave eligibility.
• Add Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave as a distinct leave category (variable length, one block, unpaid).
• Update automated eligibility rules and notification triggers.

Decisions to make now:

Three questions worth getting a clear answer to before the 6th of April:

1. Does your enhanced paternity pay apply from day one, or will you maintain a contractual service threshold for the top-up? You’re permitted to maintain a threshold for any enhanced element above statutory.
2. Will you offer any enhanced pay for Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave? The statutory rate is unpaid. Many employers are choosing to offer at least some paid provision as a signal of genuine support.
3. How will probation work for employees who take family leave in their first weeks? With the unfair dismissal qualifying period dropping to six months in January 2027, getting your probation framework right now is worth the effort.

What’s staying the same and what’s coming in 2027

A few changes that are commonly mixed up with April 2026 but are actually unchanged:

• Maternity leave entitlement and qualifying period: no change.
• SMP qualifying period (26 weeks + earnings): no change.
• Statutory Paternity Pay qualifying period: unchanged (the day-one right covers the leave, not the pay).
• Shared parental leave qualifying periods: no change.
• Adoption leave structure: no change.

Looking ahead to 2027

April 2026 is the first significant wave. More is coming. Changes confirmed for 2027 include:

• Unfair dismissal qualifying period drops from two years to six months (January 2027).
• Stronger dismissal protections for pregnant workers and those returning from maternity leave.
• A new general statutory bereavement leave right covering close relatives beyond children.

For the full ERA 2025 timeline and everything coming after April 2026, see our Employment Rights Act 2025 hub.

Don’t manage this with a policy document and a spreadsheet

Five changes landing on one date — across policies, contracts, payroll and HR systems — is a significant amount to coordinate manually. And with qualifying period blocks now removed across two leave types, the margin for system errors is real.

Employment Hero’s leave management software removes service-based eligibility blocks automatically and keeps all leave entitlements in one place. Our HR advisory team can help you update your family leave policies and employment contracts so they’re compliant and built to last. And our payroll software already reflects the 2026/27 statutory rates, with no manual rate updates required on your end.