13/05/2026

On 7 May 2026, HMRC published guidance on how to calculate Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP) where your payroll software or Basic PAYE Tools cannot correctly calculate payments for Northern Ireland-based employees, for claims relating to a child’s death or miscarriage that happened on or after 6 April 2026.

By way of recap employees are entitled to:

• SPBP is taken as either 2 consecutive weeks or two separate blocks of 1 week.

• It must be taken within 56 weeks of the child’s death, a stillbirth, or the date the woman experienced (or became aware of) the miscarriage.

• It is paid at the statutory rate if the average weekly earnings are £129 or more to qualify. SPBP is paid at the lower of £194.32 per week or 90% of average weekly earnings.

The Guidance sets out Key Definitions

Qualifying child: generally a child under 18 who dies on/after 6 April 2026 (including a stillbirth after the 24th week of pregnancy).

• Miscarriage: loss of pregnancy before 24 weeks (including certain medical interventions following clinical assessment, as set out in HMRC’s guidance).
• Relevant week: the week (Sunday to Saturday) immediately before the week in which the bereavement occurred.
• SPBP length: paid for 1 or 2 complete weeks, taken within 56 weeks.

• Relevant week: the week (Sunday–Saturday, ending Saturday) immediately before the week in which the bereavement occurred.
• SPBP length: a weekly payment for 1 or 2 complete weeks (either together or as two separate weeks), to be taken within 56 weeks of the death/stillbirth/miscarriage awareness date.

Action Payroll/HR should take:

1. A signed Employee Declaration (for example form SPBP3, or your own equivalent).
2. Identify the Key Dates: start date; date of death/stillbirth (or when the miscarriage was experienced/became known); and the intended SPBP start date.
3. Calculate the Earnings: actual earnings for the 8 weeks up to the relevant week, and expected earnings for up to the 8 weeks after the bereavement (where needed).
4. Check that the earnings are (or would be) liable for Class 1 National Insurance.

It then covers some common tricky areas such as:

• Impact of Backdated pay rises that change the pay in the qualifying period (you may need to recalculate).
• Overpayments or underpayments during the qualifying period.
• Allocating earnings to the correct week for the calculation.
• Salary sacrifice and the impact on earnings.
• Contractual benefits and what counts as earnings.

The HMRC guidance includes worked examples. The Guidance can be accessed here.