Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026

In brief

Third commencement instrument under the Employment Rights Act 2025 (SI 2026/373, made 25 March 2026). Regulation 2 brings into force on 6 April 2026: s.10 (statutory sick pay in Great Britain: removal of waiting period), s.11 (Great Britain: lower earnings limit etc), s.12 (statutory sick pay in Northern Ireland: removal of waiting period) and s.13 (Northern Ireland: lower earnings limit etc). Regulations 3–6 make transitional provision for employees whose period of incapacity for work straddles 5 and 6 April 2026: reg 3 (waiting days served before 6 April), reg 4 (normal weekly earnings between £125 and £154.05), reg 5 (earnings below the lower earnings limit: England, Wales and Scotland) and reg 6 (the same for Northern Ireland).

Key provisions

• reg.2 — 6 April 2026: day-one statutory sick pay (ERA 2025 ss.10–13) : Brings into force on 6 April 2026 s.10 (statutory sick pay in Great Britain: removal of waiting period), s.11 (Great Britain: lower earnings limit etc), s.12 (Northern Ireland: removal of waiting period) and s.13 (Northern Ireland: lower earnings limit etc). As enacted, s.10 removes the three waiting days (SSCBA 1992 s.155(1)) and the rule that a period of incapacity for work must last at least four consecutive days (s.152(2)), so that statutory sick pay is payable from the first qualifying day of incapacity, including a single day of incapacity; s.11 omits the lower earnings limit as a bar to a period of entitlement and sets the weekly rate at the lower of a flat rate and 80 per cent of the employee's normal weekly earnings.
• regs.3–6 — Transitional provision for incapacity straddling 5 and 6 April 2026 : Regulation 3 applies where an employee has a period of at least two consecutive days of incapacity for work that includes not more than two waiting days on or before 5 April 2026 and at least one later day, on or after 6 April 2026, that is a post-6th April qualifying day and would have been a waiting day had sections 10 or 12 not come into force; the employee is eligible for statutory sick pay for the post-6th April qualifying days in that period, and the first day of the period is treated as the critical date for regulation 19 of the 1982 Regulations. Regulation 4 applies to an employee whose period of entitlement began on or before 5 April 2026 and had not ended before 6 April 2026, for whom statutory sick pay was payable for at least one qualifying day on or before 5 April 2026, and whose normal weekly earnings were not less than £125 and not more than £154.05: statutory sick pay continues for the rest of that period of entitlement (the protection period) at the weekly rate of £123.25, but the protection period does not include a later linked period of incapacity for work (regulation 4(3)). Regulation 5 (England, Wales and Scotland) and regulation 6 (Northern Ireland) deem a post-6th April period of entitlement to arise, starting on the first day of incapacity for work on or after 6 April 2026, for an employee whose incapacity began on or before 5 April 2026, continued on or after 6 April 2026 and gave no period of entitlement only because earnings were below the lower earnings limit; they do not apply to an employee whose period of incapacity began on or before 21 September 2025 and has continued unbroken to 5 April 2026.

When relevant

Establishing the 6 April 2026 operative date for day-one statutory sick pay under ERA 2025 ss.10–13 (removal of the waiting period, and the lower earnings limit changes), in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland, and the transitional position for incapacity that straddles 5 and 6 April 2026. Use when a sickness-absence or sick-pay policy, or an analysis of what statutory sick pay was payable on a given day, turns on which version of Part 11 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (or its Northern Ireland counterpart) applied. Not the source for day-one paternity or parental leave (SI 2026/3, ERA2025-COMM-2026-1).