Employment law refresher on paternity leave

The right to paternity leave is one of many employment rights that were enhanced under the Employment Rights Act 2025, along with other tweaks to the rules for employers. 

Despite the misleading name, paternity leave is available to the partner of a mother or main adopter, regardless of their gender, and the right applies when a child is born or adopted. Other changes to the rules give employees more flexibility as to when they take this time off if they are making use of other family-friendly rights.

In this blog, we explain that now is a good time to refresh your policies and procedures to clarify who is entitled, when paternity leave is paid, when the leave can be taken, notice requirements and what protection is given to employees exercising this right.

What is paternity leave?

Paternity leave is the right to one or two weeks off work to care for the child or to support the mother or, where a child is being adopted by a couple, to support the person chosen to be the ‘main adopter’ for purposes of family-friendly employment rights.

The leave is taken as a block of one or two weeks or two separate weeks. The time off must be taken within 52 weeks of the child’s birth or comes to live with the adopting parents, known as being placed for adoption.

Who is entitled?

The right applies to an employee who has, or expects to have, responsibility for the upbringing of the child alongside the mother or main adopter and is:

‘Partner’ means a person who lives with the mother and child in an enduring family relationship, but is not their relative (i.e. parent, sibling, grandparent or an aunt or uncle). The employee must also comply with the appropriate notice requirements.

How does this work for a same sex couple?

Parents adopting a child are in the same position, whether or not the couple is the same or different sex.

However, if the child is being born and the employee is the male partner or spouse of the biological father, he will not be entitled to paternity leave. This is because the right applies to the spouse, civil partner or partner of the mother, rather than the father, even if the employee expects to have responsibility for the child’s upbringing.

Length of employment

From April 2026, the minimum service requirement was removed and this became a day-one right where:

Is paternity leave paid or unpaid?

Paternity leave is only paid when the employee meets the following conditions:

We can advise you on the relevant date for assessing eligibility. The statutory rate of paternity pay is £194.32 per week from 5 April 2026.

When does an employee have to tell us?

Employees must notify their employer of their entitlement to take paternity leave by the end of the 15^th week before the expected week of childbirth.

When adopting a child, the employee must inform their employer of their entitlement within seven days of the main adopter being told by an approved adoption agency that a child has been matched with them for adoption. We can advise you on the information they must provide and the additional notice requirements before each period of paternity leave. The rules vary when the child is being adopted from overseas.

What other rights do employees have when taking paternity leave?

In keeping with employees exercising other family-friendly rights, employees:

Taking shared parental leave and changes in the rules

Previously, if an employee had taken shared parental leave, they could not also take paternity leave. This restriction was removed on 6 April 2026. 

How we can help

We can ensure that your policies on family-friendly leave are up to date and comply with recent changes in the law. We can guide you through the rules if any queries come up.

For advice on employment law, please contact Neil Largan in our dispute resolution team on 01904 624185.

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Please note that the law may have changed since this article was published.