Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP) as an employees is:

• 90% of your gross average weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks

• £184.03 a week or 90% of your gross average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks

Tax and National Insurance need to be deducted.

Some employment types like agency workers, directors and educational workers have different rules for entitlement.

You can take up to 52 weeks’ Statutory Adoption Leave. The first 26 weeks is known as ‘Ordinary Adoption Leave’, the last 26 weeks as ‘Additional Adoption Leave’.

Leave can start:

• on the date the child starts living with you or up to 14 days before the expected placement date (UK adoptions)
  
  

• when you have been matched with a child to be placed with them by a UK adoption agency
  
  

• when a child arrives in the UK or within 28 days of this date (overseas adoptions)
  
  

• the day the child’s born or the day after (parents in surrogacy arrangements)

You must:

• have been continuously employed for at least 26 weeks up to any day in the week you were matched with a child
  
  

• have payroll and earn at least £123 a week in an 8-week period - the ‘relevant period’
  
  

• give the correct notice
  
  

• give proof of the adoption

You will not qualify for either adoption leave or pay if you:

• become a special guardian or kinship carer

• adopt a stepchild or family member

• adopt privately, for example without permission from a UK authority or adoption agency

Statutory Adoption Pay

Employees must give you 28 days’ notice before they want to be paid Statutory Adoption Pay, unless the time between the child being matched and placed is less than that.

Statutory Adoption Leave

Within 7 days of being matched with a child, you must must tell your employer:

• how much leave you want

• your leave start date

• the ‘date of placement’ - the expected or actual date the child is placed with you
  
  

Your employer has 28 days to write to yoy confirming your leave start and end date.

There are different rules for overseas adoptions and surrogacy arrangements.

You must provide proof of adoption, the proof must show the following:

• name and address of the agency and employee

• date the child was matched, for example the matching certificate

• expected or actual date of placement, for example a letter from the agency

• relevant UK authority’s ‘official notification’ confirming the parent is allowed to adopt (overseas adoptions only)

• date the child arrived in the UK, for example a plane ticket (overseas adoptions only)