Neonatal Care Leave and Pay

What it is

Neonatal Care Leave and Pay is a statutory entitlement for parents of babies who need neonatal care. GOV.UK describes it as paid time off work if your newborn baby is premature or sick and needs neonatal care, and it is the first UK entitlement designed specifically for this situation rather than borrowed from maternity or sick leave.

It applies to babies born on or after 6 April 2025. If your baby was born before that date you are not eligible, however unfair that feels.

How much leave

GOV.UK states that you can get one week's leave for every seven full and continuous days your baby is in neonatal care, up to a maximum of 12 weeks. Leave is a day-one right for employees: GOV.UK says it does not matter how long you have been with your employer. It must be taken within 68 weeks — just under 16 months — of your baby's birth date.

Bliss adds the detail that catches people out. Only complete seven-day periods count, so a baby who spends three weeks and five days in care generates three weeks of leave, not four. Bliss also explains that the count starts on the day after care begins: if your baby is admitted on a Monday, Tuesday is day one, and if your baby is still receiving care the following Tuesday you have accrued a full week.

How much pay

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay is a separate test from the leave. HM Revenue and Customs' rates for 2026 to 2027 give the weekly rate of Statutory Neonatal Care Pay as £194.32 or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, applying from 6 April 2026. The flat rate is reviewed each April, so check the current figure before you plan around it — and be aware that the consumer-facing GOV.UK guide can lag behind the HMRC rates table by a few months after an uprating.

Pay is made in the same way as your wages, with tax and National Insurance deducted.

Who qualifies

GOV.UK sets the core conditions: your baby was born on or after 6 April 2025, your baby spends seven days or more in a row in neonatal care, and you are the baby's parent or the partner of the baby's mother with caring responsibility for the baby. Bliss adds that the care must start within 28 days of birth, and that the entitlement applies in England, Wales and Scotland.

For the pay, GOV.UK requires continuous employment with your employer for at least 26 weeks up to the end of the qualifying week, plus a minimum average weekly earnings level. Bliss puts the practical version plainly: if you meet the leave conditions but not the employment or earnings ones, you can still take Neonatal Care Leave, you just will not be paid for it.

What counts as neonatal care

Broader than most people assume. GOV.UK includes hospital care, medical care after leaving hospital — which must be under a consultant and include ongoing visits or checks arranged by the treating hospital — and palliative or end of life care. Bliss spells out that this covers a neonatal unit, a transitional care ward, a paediatric intensive care unit or any other children's ward, and that a baby discharged home on oxygen or with a feeding tube who is still being monitored continues to accrue leave.

Bliss gives the worked example: three weeks on a neonatal unit followed by seven weeks at home on oxygen with neonatal outreach care accrues ten weeks of leave.

It is in addition, not instead

GOV.UK is explicit that Neonatal Care Pay and Leave comes on top of other parental pay and leave entitlements. If you are already on maternity or adoption leave when your baby goes into neonatal care, the Neonatal Care Leave is taken at the end of that entitlement rather than swallowed by it. GOV.UK's own example is a baby who spends 56 days in care while the mother is on maternity leave: instead of losing eight weeks of leave to the hospital stay, those weeks are added to the end of the 39 weeks.

Tier one and tier two

GOV.UK divides the leave into two phases, which changes the notice you must give and how you can take it. While your baby is in neonatal care, or up to a week after leaving, you can take leave in separate blocks of at least a week at a time. More than a week after your baby has left neonatal care, you must take it in a single continuous block. Notice requirements are shorter in the first phase, for obvious reasons.

Twins and multiples

GOV.UK states that if your babies are in neonatal care at the same time, you can only claim for one of them, up to the 12-week maximum. If they are in care at separate times, you can claim for each, still capped at 12 weeks in total.

Both parents can take it

Bliss confirms that the entitlement is open to both parents with caring responsibility, including the birthing parent, the father or non-birthing parent, adopters, intended parents in surrogacy and a partner living with the mother in a committed family relationship. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings cannot claim it.

What to do now

Tell your employer that your baby is receiving neonatal care as soon as you reasonably can, in writing, and keep a note of the admission date and any transfers — the seven-day counting depends on dates, not on impressions. Ask your employer whether they have a neonatal leave policy that improves on the statutory minimum, because many now do. And while you are dealing with money, Bliss also has guidance on travel and parking costs, which for a long admission often outweighs the pay difference.