Maternity Allowance: Who Qualifies and What It Pays in 2026/27
Statutory Maternity Pay comes from an employer, and it has conditions attached: 26 weeks with that employer by a specific week, and average earnings at or above a threshold. Plenty of people miss one or both. Someone who changed jobs at the wrong moment, someone self-employed, someone whose hours were cut in exactly the wrong eight weeks.
Maternity Allowance is the fallback, paid by the DWP rather than an employer, and it reaches a great many people who assume they get nothing. This explains who qualifies, what it pays and how to claim. It is general information rather than advice on your circumstances.
The three rates
Maternity Allowance is not one payment. There are three versions, and which one you get depends on how you qualify.
| Route | Weekly amount | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Employed or self-employed, meeting the standard test | £194.32, or 90% of your average weekly earnings if that is less | Up to 39 weeks |
| Self-employed without sufficient Class 2 National Insurance contributions | As low as £27 | Up to 39 weeks |
| Spouse or civil partner of a self-employed person, helping in the business | £27 | Up to 14 weeks |
That first row is the one most people fall into, and at £194.32 it matches the standard rate of SMP exactly. The difference from SMP is not the weekly figure, it is that Maternity Allowance has no equivalent of the first six weeks at 90% of earnings with no cap.
The standard test: 26 weeks in 66
To get the main rate you must have been employed or registered as self-employed for at least 26 weeks in the 66 weeks before your baby is due. Those 66 weeks are called the test period.
Two features of that test make it far more generous than it first sounds.
The 26 weeks do not have to be consecutive, and they do not have to be with the same employer. Three months here, a gap, four months there, all of it counts.
Sixty-six weeks is well over a year, so it reaches back before the pregnancy. Work you did fifteen months ago still counts even if you have not worked since.
This is why people who assume they are excluded often are not. If you have done any paid work in the last year and a bit, run the dates before concluding you get nothing.
The earnings test: £30 in 13 weeks
Alongside the 26 weeks, you must have earned at least £30 a week in at least 13 of the weeks in the test period. Those 13 weeks do not have to be consecutive either, and you can pick your best 13.
Thirty pounds a week is a deliberately low bar. A few hours at minimum wage clears it comfortably. It is designed to catch genuinely marginal work rather than to exclude low earners, and it does not work the way the SMP threshold does.
Pick your best weeks. Because you choose which 13 weeks to use for the earnings test, a fortnight of overtime or a busy month of self-employed invoices can lift your average and therefore your weekly payment. It is worth going through the whole 66 weeks rather than submitting the most recent ones out of convenience.
How Maternity Allowance differs from SMP
| Statutory Maternity Pay | Maternity Allowance | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid by | Your employer | The DWP |
| Length | 39 weeks | Up to 39 weeks |
| First 6 weeks | 90% of average weekly earnings, no cap | No enhanced period |
| Remaining weeks | £194.32 or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower | £194.32 or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower |
| Service condition | 26 weeks with one employer by the qualifying week | 26 weeks in a 66-week test period, any employer or self-employed |
| Earnings condition | Average weekly earnings at or above £129 for 2026/27 | £30 a week in 13 weeks of the test period |
| Self-employed | Not available | Available |
For anyone who qualifies for both, SMP is normally worth more because of those first six weeks. You cannot receive both for the same period.
If you are self-employed
Maternity Allowance is the main route, and the amount turns on your Class 2 National Insurance record.
With enough Class 2 contributions paid for the test period, you get the standard £194.32. Without them, the payment can drop as low as £27 a week. The gap between those two figures across 39 weeks is substantial, which is why the National Insurance position is worth checking as early as possible.
If there are gaps, it may be possible to make voluntary contributions to improve the rate. Ask HMRC about your record rather than assuming, and do it before you claim rather than after.
The 14-week route
The third rate is easy to miss. If your spouse or civil partner is self-employed and you have been helping in their business without being paid, you may qualify for £27 a week for up to 14 weeks.
It is a small amount and a short period, but it exists precisely for a group who would otherwise get nothing at all, and hardly anyone knows about it.
When it starts and how long it runs
Maternity Allowance can start from the 11th week before the week your baby is due, and the latest it starts is the day after the birth.
As with SMP, being off with a pregnancy-related illness in the four weeks before your due date can trigger the start automatically, and the birth itself starts it if the baby comes early.
Choosing a later start date means the 39 weeks extend further past the birth, which is often what people actually want. It is worth thinking about rather than accepting the earliest possible date.
How to Claim
You claim from the DWP using form MA1, available on GOV.UK and printable at home. You can claim from the 26th week of pregnancy, and the general advice is to claim early rather than waiting, because a claim can be backdated only so far.
You will need:
- Your MATB1 maternity certificate, issued by your midwife or GP from around 20 weeks before the due date
- Proof of income for the weeks you are relying on, such as payslips
- Form SMP1 if an employer has refused you SMP, which is the evidence that route is closed
- Your National Insurance number and bank details
If an employer has told you that you do not qualify for SMP, insist on the SMP1. They are required to provide it, and without it the Maternity Allowance claim is harder to progress.
Apply even if you are unsure. The test period is long and the earnings test is low, so a surprising number of people who expect a refusal qualify. A rejected claim costs you nothing but the form.
Practical points worth knowing
You can still work a little. Keeping In Touch days work in a similar way to SMP, letting you do a limited amount of work without losing the payment. Check the current limits when you claim, because doing more than allowed affects the money.
It affects other benefits. Maternity Allowance is treated differently from SMP when other benefits are calculated, and it can reduce a Universal Credit award. If you are claiming other benefits, tell them about it and ask what the combined effect is, because the answer is not always intuitive.
National Insurance credits. Receiving Maternity Allowance normally protects your National Insurance record for the period, which matters for the State Pension later.
It does not depend on going back. Unlike some enhanced employer schemes, there is no repayment condition and no requirement to return to any particular job.
If you are refused
You can ask for a mandatory reconsideration, and then appeal, and the deadlines for both are short, so act on the decision letter rather than putting it aside.
Before that, check the arithmetic yourself. Refusals frequently rest on the DWP having counted the wrong weeks, or on the claimant having submitted only recent payslips when older weeks in the 66-week test period would have carried the claim. Send everything you have for the whole test period, not just the convenient part of it.
Citizens Advice and Maternity Action both help with these, and it is worth taking the offer up rather than accepting a first decision that looks wrong.