Paternity Pay and Leave changes linked to Shared Parental Leave
For payroll professionals, the key message for the 2026/27 tax year is this: from 6 April 2026, the rules are more flexible for fathers and partners using Paternity Leave alongside Shared Parental Leave, while the statutory weekly pay rate has increased. The government has also confirmed that Paternity Leave is now a day one right for leave purposes, but the qualifying service test for Statutory Paternity Pay remains in place.
What has changed for 2026-27
- Statutory Paternity Pay rises to £194.32 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, if lower, from 5 April 2026. The same weekly rate applies to Statutory Shared Parental Pay. In 2025/26, both rates were £187.18, so payroll teams need to update rate tables and software.
- Paternity Leave can now be taken before or after Shared Parental Leave. You can take Paternity Leave and Shared Parental Leave in any order. That is a practical shift for employers checking eligibility and sequencing leave requests.
- Paternity Leave is a day one right from 6 April 2026, but Paternity Pay is not. The government’s 2026 factsheet is clear: The 26-week qualifying period for Paternity Pay is unchanged.
The legislation that matters
- The previous restriction appears in the legislation governing paternity leave. The earlier rule said: “An employee is not entitled to be absent from work under paragraph (1) if the employee has taken any shared parental leave in respect of the child.”
- The 2026 consequential regulations explain the policy change: they “remove restrictions on taking paternity leave after having taken shared parental leave and on receiving statutory paternity pay after having received” shared parental pay.
- Shared parental leave itself still allows parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay in the first year after birth or placement.
A simple before-and-after example helps. Before 6 April 2026, if an employee had already moved into shared parental leave, they generally could not then return to statutory paternity leave. From 6 April 2026, they can. Before 6 April 2026, a new starter would usually need 26 weeks’ service by the relevant week to qualify for paternity leave. From 6 April 2026, they can give notice for leave from day one, but they may still not qualify for Statutory Paternity Pay if the service and earnings conditions are not met.
For payroll, the takeaway is to update policy wording, manager guidance, payroll decision trees and employee communications together. This is especially important where organisations still describe paternity leave as something that must be taken before any shared parental leave.
HMRC calculators, internal forms, and family leave workflows should also be checked to ensure they reflect the new 2026-27 rates and the revised sequencing rules, and that it is not just a pay-rate refresh. It is the year paternity leave becomes more flexible, more accessible from day one, and more closely aligned with the realities of shared parental leave administration.