Employees can take up to two weeks of parental bereavement leave for a child under 18 who has died. This includes stillbirths after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
2 weeks' leave can be taken for each child who has died.
You will be eligible from the day you start work (without needing a minimum period of service to take parental bereavement leave), but you must have a qualifying relationship with the child.
You will have a qualifying relationship with the child if:
i. Their parent, or someone else who has legal parental responsibility (or parental responsibilities or parental rights in Scotland) for them, was also living at your home; or
ii. You were paid to care for the child. This excludes local authority fees paid to a foster parent, payments intended to reimburse expenses for the child's care and payments received from a will or trust towards their care.
If you are entitled to parental bereavement leave, you are normally entitled to statutory parental bereavement pay. For more information, see our Statutory parental bereavement pay section.
You must notify your employer before taking parental bereavement leave. You should let them know:
The notice doesn't have to be in writing and can be informal, such as a telephone call or text message.
When the notice must be given depends of when you want to take the leave.
During the first 56 days after death
If you intend to take parental bereavement leave during first 56 days after your child dies, you should give the above information on the first day you want to take the leave, before you would be due to start work. If that is not reasonably possible, you should give it as soon as possible after.
After 56 days
If you intend to take parental bereavement leave more than 56 days after the death of your child, you should give at least 7 days' notice.
You can choose to take either 1 or 2 whole weeks' parental bereavement leave. You can take it in 2 consecutive weeks or 2 separate weeks at different times. You can't split up a week by taking a few days here or there.
A week is a 7-day period starting on any day.
Parental bereavement leave can begin any time from the date of the child's death, but must be completed within 56 weeks of this date.
Parental bereavement leave can't be cancelled once it has started. But you can cancel any future parental bereavement leave if you've notified your employer. This doesn't have to be in writing and can be informal such as by a call or text message.
When you should inform your employer depends on when you told them about taking the leave: