Maternity leave and pay calculator

How maternity leave and pay are calculated, country by country

Six countries, six genuinely different systems. Every rate below carries the date it took effect, because a maternity rate without a date cannot be checked and several of them change part-way through a pregnancy.

United Kingdom

Everything hangs off the expected week of childbirth (EWC), which is the Sunday-to-Saturday week your due date falls in. From it:

• Qualifying week = the 15th week before the EWC.
• Earliest leave start = 11 weeks before the EWC.
• Leave notice deadline = the end of the qualifying week, which is a Saturday.
• MATB1 certificate can be issued from 20 weeks before the due date, and no earlier.
• SMP notice = at least 28 days before the day you want pay to start; proof of pregnancy within 21 days of that date.
• 26 weeks’ continuous employment is measured to the end of the qualifying week. Twenty-six weeks is 182 days inclusive, so the job must have started on or before the end of the qualifying week minus 181 days — which always lands on a Sunday.

Statutory Maternity Leave is 52 weeks for employees: 26 weeks Ordinary plus 26 weeks Additional. It is a day-one right and does not depend on service, hours or pay. At least 2 weeks must be taken after the birth, or 4 weeks in a factory.

Statutory Maternity Pay is 39 weeks: 6 weeks at 90% of average weekly earnings with no cap, then 33 weeks at the lower of £194.32 and 90% of average weekly earnings. The £194.32 standard rate applies from 5 April 2026 for the 2026/27 tax year. The earnings floor is the Lower Earnings Limit, £129 a week for 2026/27. Average weekly earnings are worked out over the eight weeks ending with the last normal payday on or before the end of the qualifying week, so reduced hours or unpaid sick leave in that window can push you under the threshold.

If SMP is not payable your employer must give you form SMP1 within 7 days, and the fallback is Maternity Allowance: up to 39 weeks at £194.32 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, paid by the DWP. Its own test is 26 weeks of employment or self-employment in the 66 weeks before the due date, with at least £30 a week earned in 13 of them. A lower rate of £27 a week for up to 14 weeks exists for unpaid work in a spouse’s or civil partner’s business.

One nuance the tool models deliberately: SMP is not restricted to employment-law “employees”. Its test is being an employee for National Insurance purposes, which catches most agency and zero-hours workers. Agency workers are routinely told they cannot claim SMP, and it is often untrue.

United States — there is no federal paid maternity leave

This is the most important output in the tool and it is not a number. The Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau states it directly: there is currently no federal law providing or guaranteeing access to paid family and medical leave for workers in the private sector.

What federal law gives is unpaid leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period, with group health benefits continued and restoration to the same or a virtually identical position. All three eligibility tests must be met: 12 months’ service with the employer, at least 1,250 hours of service in the preceding 12 months (roughly 24 hours a week), and a worksite with at least 50 employees within 75 miles. Give at least 30 days’ notice where the leave is foreseeable, which a due date always is.

Everything paid comes from a state programme, an employer policy or an insurance policy. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia run paid family and medical leave programmes, funded by payroll contributions and paid by the state rather than your employer — which means they survive a job change in a way employer benefits do not. The 2026 figures for the five largest:

• California. State Disability Insurance covers your own pregnancy-related disability; Paid Family Leave then covers up to 8 weeks of bonding in a 12-month period. Both pay 70–90% of wages depending on income, to a maximum of $1,765 a week for claims beginning on or after 1 January 2026, with a $50 weekly minimum.
• New York. Up to 12 weeks at 67% of your average weekly wage, capped at 67% of the state average weekly wage. For 2026 the NYSAWW is $1,833.63, making the maximum $1,228.53 a week. Employees fund it through a 0.432% payroll deduction capped at $411.91 a year.
• New Jersey. Family Leave Insurance pays up to 12 weeks at 85% of your average weekly wage, up to $1,119 a week in 2026. Temporary Disability Insurance covers the pregnancy and recovery separately. To qualify in 2026 you need 20 weeks earning at least $310 a week, or $15,500 total in the base year.
• Washington. Twelve weeks family plus 12 weeks medical, combined to a maximum of 16 — extendable to 18 if a serious health condition with pregnancy results in incapacity. The formula in RCW 50A.15.020 pays 90% of your average weekly wage up to half the state average weekly wage, then 50% of the excess, capped at $1,647 in 2026 with a $100 minimum. You need 820 hours in the qualifying period. The 2026 premium is 1.13% of wages.
• Massachusetts. Up to 20 weeks paid medical and 12 weeks paid family leave, combined maximum 26 weeks in a benefit year. Mass. Gen. Laws c. 175M § 3(b) pays 80% of your average weekly wage up to half the state average weekly wage, then 50% of the excess. The cap is set annually at 64% of the state average weekly wage, giving $1,230.39 for 2026 against a state average weekly wage of $1,922.48 — up from $1,170.64 in 2025.

Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia also run programmes. Delaware and Minnesota came fully online on 1 January 2026 and Maine began paying benefits in May 2026.

Australia

Two things move independently and it catches people out. Your entitlement in days is fixed by the child’s date of birth: 110 days from 1 July 2024, 120 days from 1 July 2025, and 130 days — 26 weeks on a five-day week — for a child born or adopted on or after 1 July 2026. The rate is set by the financial year in which each individual day is taken. From 1 July 2026 Parental Leave Pay is $1,004.70 a week before tax, which is $200.94 a day and $26.44 an hour, giving a maximum of $26,122.20 for the full 26 weeks. It is the national minimum wage, so it does not depend on what you earn.

Twenty of the 130 days are reserved for the other parent if you have one, so a single partnered claimant can take at most 110 days; a single parent can claim all 130. Up to 20 days can be taken by both parents at once. The work test is 330 hours in 10 of the 13 months before the birth, with no gap of more than 12 weeks between two working days. The income test is an individual limit of $186,487 and a family limit of $386,525, assessed on adjusted taxable income for the financial year before the birth or the claim. Claim up to 3 months before the expected birth; the first claimant must claim within 52 weeks of the birth, and all days must be used within 2 years. Since 1 July 2025 the ATO also pays a 12% Paid Parental Leave Superannuation Contribution, as a lump sum with interest after the financial year ends.

Unpaid parental leave under the Fair Work Act is separate: up to 12 months after 12 months’ continuous service, with a right to request a further 12 months. Give at least 10 weeks’ notice and confirm at least 4 weeks before. A pregnant employee can begin unpaid parental leave up to 6 weeks before the expected date of birth, and an employer can ask for a medical certificate within 7 days if you want to keep working inside that window.

Canada

Outside Quebec, Employment Insurance pays 15 weeks of maternity benefits at 55% of average insurable weekly earnings, capped by the maximum insurable earnings of $68,900 from 1 January 2026 — which produces a maximum of $729 a week ($68,900 × 55% ÷ 52). Parental benefits follow: standard is up to 40 weeks shared and 35 weeks for one parent at 55% to $729 a week; extended is up to 69 weeks shared and 61 weeks for one parent at 33% to $437 a week. Extended is the same money spread thinner, not more money, and the choice cannot be reversed once benefits start. You need 600 insurable hours in the previous 52 weeks. Maternity benefits can start as early as 12 weeks before the due date and cannot run more than 17 weeks after the due date or the actual birth, whichever is later.

The one-week waiting period is normally unpaid, but a temporary measure waives it for initial claims starting between 30 March 2025 and 10 October 2026. Waiving it does not add a week of benefits; it only makes them payable from week one. The tool checks the claim start date against that window rather than assuming either answer.

Quebec opted out and runs the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan, with a maximum insurable earnings of $103,000 from 1 January 2026 — a weekly ceiling of $1,980.77, far above the federal one. The basic plan pays 70% and gives a mother up to 50 weeks in total, starting with 18 weeks of maternity benefits. The special plan pays 75% over fewer weeks: up to 40 in total, starting with 15 weeks of maternity benefits. RQAP does not publish flat weekly maxima, so the tool derives them from the ceiling and says so. Maternity benefits may begin no sooner than 16 weeks before the expected week of delivery and must end no later than 20 weeks after the birth; a benefit week always runs Sunday to Saturday and cannot be split into days.

New Zealand

Paid parental leave is 26 weeks, paid fortnightly, taken as one continuous block by the primary carer. From 1 July 2026 the maximum is $811.05 a week before tax (up from $788.66) and the self-employed minimum is $239.50 a week — exactly 10 hours at the $23.95 adult minimum wage. Both figures move every 1 July. Eligibility is an average of at least 10 hours a week in any 26 of the 52 weeks immediately before the due date. Extended leave takes the total to 52 weeks, so a further 26 unpaid weeks on top of full paid leave, and requires 12 months’ service. Leave can start up to 6 weeks before the due date, earlier with a medical certificate. If the baby is born before the end of 36 weeks’ gestation, up to 13 extra weeks of payment are available in addition to the 26, without reducing them.

Ireland

Maternity leave is 26 weeks paid (156 days) plus up to 16 weeks additional unpaid leave taken immediately afterwards; the unpaid weeks still earn credited PRSI contributions. Maternity Benefit is €299 a week for leave commencing on or after 5 January 2026, up from €289 in 2025. Leave must start at least 2 weeks before the end of the expected week of confinement, at least 4 weeks must fall after the birth, and a maximum of 16 weeks may be taken before the due date.

The PRSI conditions differ by status. An employee needs 39 weeks of PRSI paid in the 12 months before leave starts; or 39 weeks paid since first starting work plus 39 weeks paid or credited in the relevant tax year or the year after; or 26 weeks paid in the relevant tax year and 26 in the year before. A self-employed person needs 52 weeks of Class S PRSI in the relevant tax year, the year before, or the year after, with tax and PRSI liabilities paid. For leave starting in 2026 the relevant tax year is 2024. Employers are not legally required to top up. If the baby is born early, benefit runs for 26 weeks from the actual birth date plus an extra period equal to the gap between the birth and the date leave would have started.

What the tool does with your numbers

The weekly wage you enter is used to test the earnings thresholds and to estimate the money, on the assumption it stays the same through the qualifying period. The hours figure is annualised and tested against the 1,250-hour FMLA rule, the 600-hour Canadian rule, the 330-hour Australian rule and the 10-hour New Zealand rule. The job start date drives the 26-week UK continuity test, the 12-month FMLA test and the 12-month Australian service test. Nothing is transmitted: the calculation runs entirely in your browser.