How to calculate and recover Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay

Your employee may be entitled to Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay (OSPP) if their partner has a baby or adopts a child. This replaces their normal earnings and helps them take time off to care for the child or support the mother.

You may be able to recover some or all of the OSPP you pay. How much you'll recover depends on your annual Class 1 National Insurance contributions (NICs) bill.

Your payroll software may work out your OSPP payments and how much you can recover. Or you can use the OSPP calculator provided by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

You can also calculate OSPP manually, using OSPP tables, but using payroll software or one of HMRC's OSPP calculators saves time and helps avoid mistakes.

On this page:

Information you'll need to work out OSPP

Whichever method you use to work out OSPP and recovery of OSPP you'll need to gather together the same information.

Information needed to calculate OSPP

Before you can start to calculate your employee's OSPP, you'll need:

  • the declaration of family commitment signed by your employee - form SC3, SC4, SC5 or your own version
  • the date your employee intends to stop work
  • your employee's gross pay and the dates it was paid in the 'relevant period' (for a definition please read E19, 'Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay' - link below)
  • the date your employee started working for you
  • confirmation that your employee's gross earnings are liable to employer's Class 1 NICs.

Download E19, 'Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay' (PDF 270K)

Information needed to work out what you can recover

To work out how much of the OSPP payments you can recover you'll need to know:

  • the amount of OSPP you're liable to pay - this is worked out automatically if you use HMRC's OSPP calculator or commercial software that has its own OSPP calculator
  • how much your Class 1 NICs (employer's and employees') were for the 'relevant tax year' - you can get this figure from your Employer Annual Return form P35

The later section 'Calculating OSPP recovery manually' explains how to decide which is the 'relevant tax year' for working out the total NICs you pay in a year.

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Calculating and recovering OSPP using HMRC’s calculators

Online calculator

HMRC's online OSPP calculator works out how much OSPP you'll have to pay and how much you can recover. It's easy to use and does everything for you. The online calculator will work out for you:

  • whether your employee is entitled to be paid OSPP
  • the amount of OSPP you should pay
  • how much you can recover

You can print the figures worked out by the OSPP calculator so they're ready to enter in:

  • the P11 Calculator - that comes as part of HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools package
  • your commercial payroll software (but this may have its own OSPP calculator)
  • a paper form P11

Downloadable calculator

A set of Basic PAYE Tools is available to download straight to your computer. In addition to calculators for OSPP and other statutory payments, the tools include:

  • an employer database on which you can record your employees’ details
  • a P11 calculator that will work out and record your employees’ tax, NICs and Student Loan deductions every pay day with a linked P32 Employment Payment record that works out what you need to pay HMRC
  • interactive forms such as P11D working sheets
  • a Learning Zone - including interactive learning material on Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay

Download Basic PAYE Tools (Opens new window) from the Business Link website

Use the online OSPP calculator (birth)

Use the online OSPP calculator (adoption – including adoption from abroad)

Complete the employer online order form

Payroll calculations and records: an introduction

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Calculating OSPP manually

If you want to calculate your OSPP payments manually you'll have to know how to work out:

  • whether your employee has worked for you long enough
  • whether they earn enough
  • how much to pay them

If your employee's entitled to OSPP, you must pay them the lower of:

  • £128.73 - from 3 April 2011
  • 90 per cent of their average weekly earnings

You'll find guidance on how to work out average weekly earnings in the HMRC's publication E19, ‘Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay'. See the section ‘Quick method for calculating Average Weekly Earnings (AWE)'.

Download E19, 'Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay' (PDF 270K)

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Calculating OSPP recovery manually

How much OSPP you can recover depends on the total amount of employer's and employees' Class 1 NICs you pay in the 'relevant tax year'.

The 'relevant tax year' is

  • the last complete tax year before the Saturday of the employee's Qualifying week (the 15th week before the baby is due) or
  • the last complete tax year before the Saturday of the employee's Matching week (the week in which they were told they'd been matched with a child).

You'll find the total of your employer's and employees' NICs for the tax year on your copy of form P35 Employer Annual Return.

If your annual liability for Class 1 NICs is £45,000 or less

If your Class 1 NICs are £45,000 or less in the relevant tax year, you can recover 103 per cent of your OSPP payments. For 2011-12 this is made up of:

  • 100 per cent of the OSPP
  • 3 per cent of the OSPP - this is an additional amount as compensation for the employer's Class 1 NICs you'll have paid on the OSPP

You can recover 103 per cent of the total of all payments of OSPP made in the same tax month.

If your annual liability for Class 1 NICs is more than £45,000

If your Class 1 NICs are more than £45,000 in the relevant tax year, you can recover 92 per cent of all payments of OSPP made in the same tax month.

You might have paid no Class 1 NICs in the relevant tax year - or only paid them for part of it. In this case, you'll need to check to see if you were paying them at the rate of more than £45,000 a year. You do this by working out your average monthly payment and multiplying that by 12.

You'll find a full explanation of how to work out how much OSPP you can recover in the E19, 'Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay'. This explains what period to use to work out your average monthly payment if you paid no NICs for the relevant year, or if you only paid them for part of it.

Download E19, 'Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay' (PDF 270K)

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Advance funding for OSPP

If you don't have sufficient payroll deductions available to cover the OSPP you're entitled to recover, you may be able to apply for funding from HMRC. Follow the link below for more information.

Get help with statutory payments funding

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OSPP and salary sacrifice schemes

If you provide benefits to your employees under a salary sacrifice scheme, this can have an impact on OSPP. Follow the link below for guidance on this issue.

Salary sacrifice: an overview for employers

Find out about the impact of salary sacrifice arrangements on OSPP (PDF 134K)

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Help and advice

Follow the links below to find out more about OSPP.

Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay - an overview

Download E19, 'Employer Helpbook for Ordinary and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay' (PDF 270K)

Quick answers to common questions on OSPP

If you still can't find what you need, you can ask a question through HMRC's email query service.

Use the OSPP email query service

Alternatively you get advice from HMRC's Employer Helpline.

Find contact details for HMRC's Employer Helpline

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