Statutory Sick Pay 2026: The Day-One Right Explained

Statutory Sick Pay changed on 6 April 2026, and it's a bigger change than most people — including a lot of employers — have realised. The old rule meant that if you earned under a certain weekly threshold, you got no SSP at all, full stop. That threshold has been scrapped. Here's the complete picture: what changed, exactly how much you're entitled to, who's covered, and what to actually do if your employer gets it wrong.

What changed on 6 April 2026

Before this date, SSP eligibility depended on the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) — if you earned less than roughly £123 a week on average, you weren't entitled to SSP at all. This hit part-time workers, people with multiple small jobs, and anyone on genuinely low hours the hardest, often the exact people who could least afford to go unpaid while sick.

From 6 April 2026, the Lower Earnings Limit for SSP has been abolished. Every employee is now entitled to SSP from their very first day of sickness, regardless of how much they earn. There's also no more three-day "waiting period" — historically the first three days of any sickness absence were unpaid "waiting days." Both of those barriers are gone.

How much you actually get

The rate depends on your average weekly earnings:

• If you earn £154.06 or more a week — you get the full flat rate of £123.25 per week.
• If you earn £154.05 or less a week — you get 80% of your average weekly earnings instead (this will be lower than £123.25, since it's calculated from your actual pay).

This is the detail that trips people up: SSP isn't automatically £123.25 for everyone. It's £123.25 or 80% of your earnings, whichever is lower. So a low-earner is still covered from day one under the new rules — they just get a smaller amount, proportional to what they normally earn.

SSP is paid for up to 28 weeks. If you're still off sick after that, you'll need to look at other support — see our benefits checker for what else you might be entitled to once SSP runs out.

Contractual sick pay vs SSP

Some employers offer their own, more generous sick pay on top of SSP — usually called Contractual Sick Pay (CSP), Company Sick Pay, or Occupational Sick Pay. If your employer offers this, it doesn't replace SSP — it includes it. So if your contract says you get, for example, £460 a week in company sick pay, that figure already has your SSP baked into it, not paid separately on top.

Check your contract, staff handbook, or intranet for a sick pay policy. If there isn't one, you should still get SSP as the legal minimum — it's not optional, and it doesn't depend on your employer having a formal policy.

Zero-hours, part-time, and agency workers

This is where most confusion happens, and where a lot of workers get wrongly told they're not covered.

You are entitled to SSP if you're on a zero-hours contract, part-time, on a fixed-term contract, or working through an agency — as long as your employer deducts tax and National Insurance from your pay (i.e. you're on PAYE). Being casual or flexible doesn't remove your entitlement.

The complication on zero-hours contracts is working out your "qualifying days" — the days you'd normally be expected to work. If your shifts have followed a consistent pattern (say, every Tuesday and Thursday for the past several weeks), those become your qualifying days for SSP purposes. If your employer disputes this, you can ask them to explain their reasoning, and you're entitled to a written explanation.

Agency workers can usually get SSP until the end of their current assignment, and sometimes beyond if another assignment was already agreed. If you don't currently have any work lined up when you fall sick, SSP doesn't apply — the entitlement is tied to being an active worker for that employer at the time.

Who isn't covered

The day-one abolition of the earnings threshold is a big improvement, but SSP still doesn't apply to everyone. You won't get SSP if you:

• Are self-employed
• Have already had 28 weeks of SSP that ended within the last 8 weeks
• Were paid Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) within the last 12 weeks
• Are in the armed forces
• Are in legal custody

If you're pregnant and off sick, note that you can't get SSP during the first 18 weeks of your maternity leave, or at all if you're receiving Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance. See our Maternity Rights Checker for how sick leave interacts with maternity pay specifically.

If your employer says you're not entitled

Given how recently the earnings threshold was scrapped, some employers — and even some payroll software — haven't caught up yet. If you're told you're not entitled to SSP, don't just accept it:

• Ask your employer for a written explanation of exactly why. They're required to give you this within 7 days of you going off sick, usually on a form called SSP1.
• If they won't provide this, you can contact HMRC's Statutory Payment Dispute Team directly — they'll query it with your employer on your behalf.
• Keep records of your sickness dates, any communication with your employer, and your payslips. If this turns into a dispute, having a clear paper trail matters.

If you believe you're being treated unfairly, disciplined, or threatened with dismissal because you've asked for sick pay you're legally owed, that's a separate and serious issue — see our Disciplinary Rights Checker or Discrimination Checker depending on what's happening.

What this means practically

If you're a low-earner, part-time worker, or on a zero-hours contract, this change is genuinely significant — under the old rules, a huge number of people got nothing at all when they were too ill to work. Now, everyone on PAYE gets at least something from day one, scaled to what they normally earn.

Our free Employee Rights Checker can walk through your specific situation — including working out whether you're covered, roughly how much you should be getting, and what to do if your employer's got it wrong. Our letter templates also include a template for formally requesting SSP or challenging a refusal in writing.