Statutory Sick Pay: maximum weeks

How long Statutory Sick Pay can run for one bout of illness.

28weeks

Corroborated Act of Parliament Great Britain in force since 1992-07-01

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

Scope: Separate periods of incapacity linked under the SSP linking rule count as ONE period for this limit, so the 28 weeks are cumulative across linked absences.

Current sources

Source A · LegislationSocial Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, c. 4 s. 155(4) ("The entitlement limit is an amount equal to 28 times the weekly rate applicable in accordance with section 157 below")

retrieved 2026-07-29

Source B · Official guidancehttps://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay ("It's paid by your employer for up to 28 weeks")

retrieved 2026-07-29

History

Value	From	To	Status	Sources
28	1992-07-01	—	Corroborated	Legislation: Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, c. 4 s. 155(4) ("The entitlement limit is an amount equal to 28 times the weekly rate applicable in accordance with section 157 below") retrieved 2026-07-29 Official guidance: https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay ("It's paid by your employer for up to 28 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.ssp.max_weeks
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): act·weeks·GB·corroborated
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:3e8b784c09609a926c1e85843564d81061b7b85625b3c5029aa226fec353696f
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:4540cba04ae1f9a10d3d2af3de7cacb22d4e57b92523e9ab68508ad6ab45c370; Official guidance: sha256:17da7584134786c6b306464e8c4570d36347abaf2f72a1aca3afb4e444568f64
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.ssp.max_weeks"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.ssp.max_weeks · current only: /v1/figures/employment.ssp.max_weeks/current

Compiler's notes

A count, so no substring matcher can locate it from the value alone: the authored LOCATORS phrase is read from s.155(4) itself, and the GOV.UK sentence is registered in B_EVIDENCE so the nightly re-checks the B side too. effective_from is the Act's own commencement, read from s.177(4) in the archived whole-Act current view: "Except as provided in Schedule 4 to the Consequential Provisions Act, this Act shall come into force on 1st July 1992". The 28 is the consolidated original text: the one F-note on s.155(4) — "Words in s. 155(4) substituted (6.4.1995) by Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Act 1994 (c. 18), ss. 8(4), 16(3)" — wraps "the weekly rate applicable in accordance with", which the probe reports as touching other words rather than the 28.