Figures › Maternity, paternity, adoption and other family pay

Statutory Maternity Pay: weeks payable

How many weeks Statutory Maternity Pay runs for.

39weeks

Corroborated Statutory Instrument Great Britain in force since 2006-10-01

Checked against its sources: statute verified 2026-09-21·guidance verified 2026-09-21

Scope: 39 consecutive weeks of pay. The first 6 are paid at 90% of average weekly earnings and the remaining 33 at the lower of the standard rate or 90% of earnings, which are separate figures. Regulation 2(3) to (5) move the START of the period in the cases they list; none of them shortens it. This record dates the value to the amending instrument's commencement, 1 October 2006; its own regulation 1(2) also limits it to confinements expected from 1 April 2007, so no earlier maternity pay period ran for 39 weeks.

Current sources

Source A · Legislationhttps://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/2379/made (SI 2006/2379 reg 3(2): "For regulation 2 (the maternity pay period) substitute" a new regulation 2 whose paragraph (2) reads "The maternity pay period shall be a period of 39 consecutive weeks"; in force 1 October 2006, reg 1(2))

retrieved 2026-09-08

Source B · Official guidancehttps://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/pay ("Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to 39 weeks")

retrieved 2026-07-29

History

Value	From	To	Status	Sources
39	2006-10-01	—	Corroborated	Legislation: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/2379/made (SI 2006/2379 reg 3(2): "For regulation 2 (the maternity pay period) substitute" a new regulation 2 whose paragraph (2) reads "The maternity pay period shall be a period of 39 consecutive weeks"; in force 1 October 2006, reg 1(2)) retrieved 2026-09-08 Official guidance: https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/pay ("Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to 39 weeks") retrieved 2026-07-29

Receipt

Everything above is reproducible and independently checkable — no trust in this site required (how verification works).

Figure ID: employment.smp.paid_leave_weeks
Name in the API: Statutory Maternity Pay: maternity pay period (weeks)
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): si·weeks·GB·corroborated
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:5a36d20fe8a504b9c1d87569d8e96ac48f32cc0882963572746f0bbe1f268c32
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:868d91560ee8013407899e81e38aa2e6d1b82546f906e1d3a82db992518bffd7; Official guidance: sha256:3865e7a883a3eda11de5f2de64799bc05664c14469408db68c5d66c4580303d2
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.smp.paid_leave_weeks"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.smp.paid_leave_weeks · current only: /v1/figures/employment.smp.paid_leave_weeks/current

Compiler's notes

An SI carry (ADR-0014): SI 2006/2379 substituted regulation 2 WHOLE, so there is no "for X substitute Y" for NF-1 to re-derive — the new text arrives as a block and the amender's as-made document carries it with no provision id of its own. The evidence is the pair: the 1986 Regulations' current view, where the value is today, and SI 2006/2379 as made, the frozen witness that put it there. Both are hashed into this record and recomputed at Gate 2. One value only: the 26-week period before 2006 waits for a parser that can read a block substitution.