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About this tool
Work out maternity leave start, end and rejoining dates from the expected due date under the Maternity Benefit Act rules.
This calculator converts an expected date of delivery into the three dates an employee and an HR team actually need: the day maternity leave starts, the last day of paid leave, and the day the employee is due back at work. It applies the entitlement rules in the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 as amended in 2017 — 26 weeks with a maximum of 8 weeks before delivery for a woman with fewer than two surviving children, 12 weeks (6 before) from the third child onwards, and the separate periods for adoption, miscarriage and tubectomy. It also flags the 80-day qualifying-service test and the date nursing breaks stop.
Open Maternity Leave Date Calculator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
Pre-delivery leave is trimmed automatically to the 8-week or 6-week maximum for your entitlement.
Childbirth, adoption or surrogacy, miscarriage and tubectomy each use their own section of the Act.
Warns when the days worked in the previous 12 months fall below the 80-day threshold in section 5(2).
26 weeks if you have fewer than two surviving children, and 12 weeks if you already have two or more. The 26-week entitlement came in with the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017; before that it was 12 weeks for everyone.
Not more than 8 weeks before the expected date of delivery for the 26-week entitlement, and not more than 6 weeks for the 12-week entitlement. Anything you do not take before delivery is added to the period after it, so starting later gives you more weeks with the baby.
You must have worked for the employer for at least 80 days in the 12 months immediately preceding your expected date of delivery, under section 5(2). Below that you may still get leave as a matter of company policy, but not the statutory paid benefit — check with your HR team.
An adopting mother of a child below three months and a commissioning mother get 12 weeks from the date the child is handed over, under section 5(4). A miscarriage or medical termination of pregnancy carries 6 weeks from that day under section 9, and a tubectomy carries 2 weeks under section 9A. A further month of leave is available for illness arising out of any of these, under section 10.
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