Maternity and paternity leave in the UK vs Netherlands: What EOR employers must know

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) requires 26 weeks of continuous employment by the 15th week before the due date, plus average weekly earnings at or above the Lower Earnings Limit of £125/week (2025/26).

The employer pays SMP and reclaims from HMRC. Standard employers recover 92%. Small employers (Class 1 NI contributions of £45,000 or less) qualify for Small Employers’ Relief and reclaim 108.5% from April 2025, rising to 109% from April 2026. That means they recover more than they spend.

Employees who do not qualify for SMP (insufficient service, self-employed, or recently unemployed) may claim Maternity Allowance via Jobcentre Plus at up to 39 weeks at £187.18/week or 90% of AWE, whichever is lower.

A mother can curtail her maternity leave early and share the remaining weeks with her partner through Shared Parental Leave (ShPL). Up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay can be split between parents. Statutory Shared Parental Pay matches the SMP flat rate.

Uptake remains very low. Government research found only around 1% of eligible mothers and 5% of eligible fathers take ShPL following birth or adoption. The policy exists, but real-world adoption is minimal.

Adoptive parents receive the same 52-week leave and 39-week pay structure, with Statutory Adoption Pay mirroring SMP rates.

Stillbirth after 24 weeks triggers full maternity leave and SMP entitlements. For pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, there is currently no statutory leave. The government has proposed at least 1 week of unpaid bereavement leave, expected to take effect in 2027.

From 6 April 2025, the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 grants parents of babies admitted to neonatal care within 28 days of birth (staying 7+ consecutive days) up to 12 additional weeks of leave. This is a Day 1 right.

During OML, employees have the right to return to the same job. During AML, they have the right to the same job or a suitable alternative on equivalent terms.

Since 6 April 2024, enhanced redundancy protection extends from the moment the employer is notified of pregnancy through to 18 months after the child’s birth. A pregnant employee or new mother must be offered any suitable alternative vacancy ahead of other candidates in a redundancy situation. Failure to comply makes the dismissal automatically unfair.

Employees may work up to 10 KIT days during maternity leave without ending their leave or pay entitlement. Both parties must agree in advance. KIT days cannot fall within the compulsory 2-week post-birth period. Employees on ShPL get an additional 20 SPLIT days.

The 16 weeks are split between pre- and post-natal leave with some flexibility.

Pre-natal leave: 4 to 6 weeks before the due date (the employee chooses the start date).

Post-natal leave: Minimum 10 weeks after delivery. If the birth is late, unused prenatal leave transfers to the postnatal period.

Compulsory leave: 4 weeks before and 6 weeks after delivery cannot be waived.

Multiple births: The entitlement extends to 20 weeks (an additional 4 weeks).

Maternity pay equals 100% of the employee’s daily wage, capped at the UWV maximum daily wage of €304.25/day (January 2026). The employer applies to UWV, UWV pays the employer, and the employer passes payment to the employee. Employers whose employees earn above the cap are not legally required to top up, though many do voluntarily.

Self-employed women access maternity benefits through the separate ZEZ (Zelfstandig en Zwanger) scheme, capped at 100% of the minimum wage.

Both adoptive parents and foster carers receive up to 6 weeks’ paid leave at 100% of the daily wage (capped), funded by UWV. If both parents are employed, both are individually entitled. The leave window runs from 4 weeks before the child’s arrival to 22 weeks after.

Article 7:670 of the Dutch Civil Code prohibits dismissal from the moment pregnancy begins through to 6 weeks after maternity leave ends. This applies to both fixed-term and permanent contracts. The only narrow exceptions are bankruptcy, instant dismissal for urgent cause, and expiry of a fixed-term contract where non-renewal is genuinely unrelated to pregnancy.

The employer must initiate the maternity benefit claim, not the employee. This is a critical step that EOR employers often get wrong.

Log in to the UWV employer portal and use the “Verzuimmelder” (absence reporting) feature. Apply 2 to 4 weeks before the employee’s leave starts, using the due date from the maternity certificate (zwangerschapsverklaring). UWV issues a decision within the first 4 weeks of leave confirming benefit amount and duration.

Late applications delay benefit decisions and leave the employer funding maternity pay from cash flow until reimbursement arrives. Build this timeline into your onboarding process.

The Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 (in force 8 March 2024, applying to births on or after 6 April 2024) introduced two changes. Leave can now be taken as two separate blocks of 1 week each, rather than consecutive weeks. The leave window extended from 56 days to 52 weeks from birth, so fathers can take one week immediately and the second later in the first year.

Notice requirements dropped to 28 days before each block (from the previous 15-week advance notice).

Statutory Paternity Pay is £187.18/week (2025/26), rising to £194.32/week from April 2026. The employer pays and reclaims from HMRC at the same rates as SMP.

Current eligibility requires 26 weeks’ continuous employment by the qualifying week. From 6 April 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 makes paternity leave a Day 1 right with no service requirement. The Act also removes the restriction on taking paternity leave after Shared Parental Leave.

A separate provision under the ERA 2025 grants bereaved partners up to 52 weeks of paternity leave if the mother dies within the child’s first year.

The partner (father, same-sex partner, or legal co-parent) receives 1 week (5 working days) at 100% of salary, funded by the employer. This must be taken within 4 weeks of the birth. Employers cannot deny this leave.

Partners may take up to 5 additional weeks within the first 6 months. This is paid at 70% of the daily wage by UWV (not the employer).

The employer can request postponement only in cases of serious business necessity, with at least 2 weeks’ notice.

The entitlements cover all partners: biological fathers, same-sex partners, and non-biological co-parents, provided they hold an employment contract. Self-employed (ZZP) workers are not entitled to birth leave or additional birth leave, as these flow through the employer social insurance scheme.

Beyond birth leave, all parents are entitled to 26 weeks of parental leave per parent (per child, until the child turns 8). The first 9 weeks are paid at 70% via UWV (capped at €203.47/day in 2026) and must be taken in the child’s first year. The remaining 17 weeks are unpaid but job-protected. This is entirely separate from maternity and birth leave.

Many sector collective labour agreements (CAOs) require employers to supplement the 70% UWV benefit to 100% for both additional birth leave and paid parental leave. This is standard in financial services, technology, healthcare, and civil service. Employers entering the Dutch market must check the applicable CAO before making any commitments on pay.

The UK’s 52-week entitlement is frequently cited without noting that only 39 weeks are paid and the final 13 weeks are unpaid. Offer letters and policies that reference “full entitlement” without this distinction lead to employee disputes and incorrect payroll calculations.

Dutch partner leave involves 1 week at 100% paid by the employer and up to 5 additional weeks at 70% paid by UWV. EOR providers that conflate these into a single 6-week entitlement either underpay in week one (where the employer, not UWV, must fund full salary) or miss the UWV application deadline for the additional weeks.

Small employers who do not claim Small Employers’ Relief forfeit the 100% + 8.5% compensation (from April 2025). All claims run through payroll software via the Employer Payment Summary and generally cannot be claimed retrospectively after year-end.

The employer must apply to UWV 2 to 4 weeks before maternity leave starts. Late applications delay benefit decisions and force the employer to fund leave from cash flow without a clear reimbursement timeline. EOR onboarding workflows must build in this lead time.

US-headquartered companies accustomed to 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA leave routinely assume their corporate policy covers Europe. It does not. Both the UK and the Netherlands set mandatory statutory minimums that cannot be contracted out of, and the Dutch system further layers CAO obligations on top of statute.

Since 6 April 2024, redundancy protection runs from the moment the employer is notified of pregnancy through to 18 months after birth. Failing to offer a pregnant employee or new mother priority access to suitable alternative vacancies makes the dismissal automatically unfair and discriminatory.

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 has been in force since April 2025. EOR payroll and HR systems must accommodate this leave type of up to 12 additional weeks for eligible parents, entirely separate from maternity and paternity entitlements.

Ouderschapsverlof (26 weeks per parent, 9 weeks paid at 70%) is a separate entitlement from maternity leave and geboorteverlof. Foreign employers who treat these as a single “parental leave” bucket incorrectly cap what employees can take.

Many Dutch sector CAOs require employers to supplement 70% UWV benefits to 100% of salary. An EOR covered by a relevant CAO that fails to check and apply the top-up rate faces both underpayment liability and breach of the collective agreement.