If someone on your team phones in sick on a Monday morning, you now owe them Statutory Sick Pay for that Monday. That's new. Until April 2026, the first three days of most sickness absences were unpaid, and staff earning below a certain threshold didn't get SSP at all. Both of those rules have gone.
For a small business, that changes two things: what short absences cost you, and how carefully you need to record them. Here's how Statutory Sick Pay works for small businesses now, what changed, and what you actually need to do.
What changed in April 2026
From 6 April 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 made three changes to SSP:
- No more waiting days. SSP is paid from the first day of sickness. Previously it only started after three waiting days.
- No more earnings threshold. The Lower Earnings Limit (previously £125 a week) has been removed, so lower-paid and part-time staff now qualify.
- A new earnings-linked rate. SSP is the lower of £123.25 a week or 80% of the employee's average weekly earnings.
The new Fair Work Agency also has enforcement powers over SSP from April 2026. If your absence policy or payroll process still assumes three waiting days, it's out of date, and any one-day absence since April may have been underpaid.
Who qualifies for Statutory Sick Pay
To get SSP, an employee needs to:
- have an employment contract and have done some work under it
- be sick for at least one full working day
- tell you they're sick within your notice deadline (or 7 days if you haven't set one)
There's no minimum length of service and, since April, no minimum earnings.
A few people don't qualify, including anyone who has already had 28 weeks of SSP, anyone getting Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance, and anyone who was in custody or on strike on their first day of sickness. GOV.UK has the full list of exceptions.
If someone doesn't qualify, you must give them form SSP1 within 7 days of their first day off sick, so they can apply for other support instead.
How much SSP you pay
The weekly rate is £123.25 or 80% of the employee's average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. Average weekly earnings are usually worked out over the previous eight weeks.
In practice:
- Someone earning £500 a week: 80% is £400, which is more than £123.25, so they get £123.25.
- Someone earning £120 a week: 80% is £96, which is less than £123.25, so they get £96.
For most full-time staff, the flat rate applies. The 80% rule mainly affects part-time and lower-paid staff, many of whom wouldn't have qualified at all before April.
Paying SSP day by day
SSP is paid for "qualifying days", which are the days the employee normally works. To get a daily rate, divide the weekly amount by the number of qualifying days in their week.
For someone on £123.25 who works Monday to Friday, that's £24.65 a day. So a single day off sick now costs you £24.65 in SSP, where under the old rules it cost nothing.
A few practical points:
- A day only counts as a sick day if it's a full working day. If someone works for even a minute before going home ill, that day doesn't count for SSP.
- SSP goes through payroll like normal wages, on the usual payday, with tax and National Insurance deducted.
- There's no general scheme to reclaim SSP from the government, so it's a direct cost to your business.
The GOV.UK SSP calculator will work out exact figures if you want to double-check.
How long SSP lasts
SSP is paid for up to 28 weeks. Separate absences are "linked" if each lasts at least one full working day and they're 8 weeks or less apart, and linked absences count towards the same 28 weeks.
If someone's SSP is going to run out while they're still unwell, you need to send them form SSP1 by the start of the 23rd week. If it ends unexpectedly, you have 7 days. For everything else that comes with a longer absence, see our guide to managing long-term sickness absence.
Notice, self-certification and fit notes
You can set your own deadline for staff to tell you they're sick. If you don't, the default is 7 days. You can't insist they tell you in person or on a special form.
For the first 7 days in a row (including non-working days), employees can self-certify. After that you can ask for a fit note, which can be issued by a GP, hospital doctor, registered nurse, occupational therapist, pharmacist or physiotherapist, and can be printed or digital.
Two rules worth remembering:
- You don't have to pay SSP for days the employee was late telling you about, unless they had a good reason.
- You can't withhold SSP because a fit note arrives late.
Company sick pay and SSP
You can pay more than SSP through a company (or contractual) sick pay scheme, but never less. If you have a scheme, check it still makes sense alongside the new rules. Contract wording that mentions three unpaid waiting days now sits awkwardly next to day one SSP, so it's worth tidying up in your absence policy.
You also can't make someone take annual leave instead of sick leave to save on SSP. That decision belongs to the employee. We cover how the two interact in sick leave vs annual leave, and what happens when illness strikes mid-holiday in what to do when an employee falls sick during their holiday.
What this means for small employers
Short absences now cost money. A team of ten with a handful of one and two day absences over a winter will generate SSP that simply didn't exist before. That's not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to:
- update your absence policy and any contract wording that mentions waiting days
- check your payroll provider has applied the April 2026 changes
- record every sick day accurately, including single days
That last one matters more than it used to. When short absences were unpaid, a missed day in the spreadsheet didn't cost anyone anything. Now every day of sickness can mean money owed, and HMRC may ask to see your records if there's ever a dispute over SSP. If short absences start to form a pattern, the Bradford Factor is one way to spot it early, and our guide to managing employee absence covers the conversations that follow.
How Absently helps
Absently records sickness as its own leave type, separate from annual leave, so you've always got a clear, dated record of who was off sick and when. That makes it easy to give whoever runs your payroll accurate sickness dates, and to spot patterns before they become problems. Absently doesn't run payroll or calculate SSP, but it does make sure the dates your payroll relies on are right.
Start your free trial and get your sickness records out of the spreadsheet.