Paternity Leave update
Paternity Leave update
What are the paternity leave rules if a father is hired after their baby is born?
Question: We have a new employee starting at the business on 27 June 2026. Their baby was born on 7 June 2026. They have asked to take a week of paternity leave in September 2026. Are they entitled to take this under the statutory rules, considering they weren’t employed with us when the baby was born?
Answer: Yes, your employee is still entitled to paternity leave even if their baby was born before they started with your business, provided certain conditions are met.
From 6 April 2026, paternity leave became a day-one right, meaning eligible employees can take paternity leave from the first day of employment. However, this entitlement applies only to babies with an expected week of childbirth (EWC) on or after 5 April 2026, born on or after 6 April 2026, or adopted on or after 6 April 2026.
Therefore, in this Q&A, as your employee’s baby was born after that date, their right to paternity leave applies from day one.
For parents of babies born or adopted before these dates, they must still have 26 weeks’ continuous service with the employer by the end of the 15th week before the EWC, or in the case of adoption, have 26 weeks’ continuous service ending with the week in which the child’s adopter is notified of matching with a child.
Paternity leave is two weeks which can be taken together or separately in one-week blocks. The amount of leave is the same even if the employee has more than one child (for example, twins). A week of paternity leave is the same number of days normally worked by the individual in a week.
Whilst qualifying service for paternity leave has changed, the rules for statutory paternity pay (SPP) remain the same. Whether or not this employee is entitled to that will need to be checked on an individual basis.
On the question of notice to take paternity leave, there is a transitional period in place that temporarily reduces the notification requirement to 28 days in respect of babies with an EWC between 5 April 2026 and 25 July 2026, where the parent became eligible to take paternity leave as a result of the removal of the qualifying service requirements from 6 April 2026. Therefore, this employee may give 28 days of their entitlement to paternity leave.