Paternity Leave

Certain employees are entitled to take paternity leave, which is paid. The conditions of entitlement are as follows: - The employee must:

1. Have or expect to have responsibility for the child’s upbringing, and
2. Be the biological father of the child OR the mother’s husband or the mother’s partner, and
3. Have been employed by their employer for at least 26 weeks ending with the 15^th week before the baby is due.

An employee that meets the conditions of entitlement can choose to take either:-

a. One week, or

b. Two consecutive weeks

As paternity leave.

There are a number of options for the commencement date of paternity leave. The employee can start the leave

1. From the date of the birth of the child (whether this is earlier or later than expected) or, if the employee is working on that date, the following day; OR
2. From a chosen number of days or weeks after the birth of the child (whether the birth is earlier or later than expected); OR
3. From a predetermined date, after the first day of the expected week of the birth of the child.

The leave can commence on any day of the week on or following the birth of the child, but must be completed in a 1 week, or 2 week block. Therefore the employee that wants to take 1 week paternity leave cannot take off 2 days one week and the remainder of the entitlement during the following week.

Only one period of leave is allowed to the employee irrespective of whether more than one child is born as a result of the particular pregnancy (this is in contrast to parental leave (see link) where leave can be taken by reference to each relevant child.

In any event the paternity leave MUST be completed:-

a. Within 56 days of the actual date of birth of the child, or

b. If the child is born earlier than expected, within the period from the actual birth up to 56 days after the first day of the week in which the birth was actually expected.

The employee is entitled to their usual terms and conditions of employment (apart from wages or salary –unless their contract of employment states otherwise) throughout the paternity leave period. Once the leave period has ended the employee is entitled to return to the same job they had before.

In order to ensure that employers follow the correct procedures, and ensure compliance at least with the statutory minimum requirements, employers must have the appropriate policy in place (see link PAYG paternity leave policy).

Old rules on "Additional Paternity Leave"  

Regulations in force between April 2010 and April 2015 resulted in a significant change in the Paternity Leave entitlements. Although the regulations came into effect on the 6th April 2010 they only applied in relation to children whose  week of birth began on or after the 3rd April 2011. As with the current Regulations there was no "small employer" exemption in the Regulations.



Those Regulations gave mothers the right to transfer the second 6 months of their maternity leave entitlement to the father of the child (or new adopted father in relation to adopted children). This was available if the mother had returned to work after the first 6 months of maternity leave. The father could not exercise the right to the extended leave until at least 20 weeks after the birth. The father will had the right to statutory paternity pay (at the same rate as statutory maternity pay) for any part of the period during which the mother would have been entitled to statutory maternity pay if she had not returned to work. In turn those rules were repealed when the new right to Shared Parental Leave came into effect.

Replaced by -_Shared Parental Leave

These regulations came into effect in April 2015. They gave the parents the ability to split the maternity leave period between them. They work as an opt-out from the Statutory Maternity Leave provisions. The parents have to give certain notices to their respective employers in order to use the Shared Parental Leave provisions. For further details see our articles on Shared Parental Leave.

The rules on Paternity Leave continue to exist (it is frustrating that the Government has used very similar and confusing titles for the various schemes that operate in this area!).