Your Employer Will Not Pay SSP: What to Do About It
Statutory Sick Pay is a legal obligation, not a discretionary benefit. An employer cannot opt out of it, cannot make it conditional on their opinion of how ill you are, and cannot quietly not pay it and hope you do not notice.
What they can do is get it wrong, and since the rules changed on 6 April 2026 a fair number of payrolls have. This page sets out the reasons SSP can legitimately be refused, the ones that are not legitimate, and the order in which to escalate. It is general information rather than legal advice on your own case.
First, Check It Is Actually Wrong
Before raising a dispute, work out what you should have received. There are only three inputs: your average weekly earnings, your qualifying days, and how many of those days you were off.
SSP for 2026/27 is £123.25 a week or 80% of your normal weekly earnings, whichever is lower. The daily figure is the weekly amount divided by the number of qualifying days in that week, so five qualifying days at the full rate gives £24.65 a day. Our guide to the calculation walks through it, and the SSP calculator will do the sums.
Two things that look like errors but are not: SSP has tax and National Insurance deducted like any other pay, and SSP is not payable for a day you did any work at all, so a half day counts as a working day.
The Reasons SSP Can Legitimately Be Refused
The list is finite. You are not entitled to SSP if:
- You have already had the maximum 28 weeks in this period of sickness or a linked series of absences
- You are receiving Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance
- You received Employment and Support Allowance within the 12 weeks before starting or returning to work
- You are in legal custody
- Your contract of employment has ended
- There is a stoppage of work due to a trade dispute at your workplace
- You are not classed as an employee, or you have not yet done any work for the employer
- You have not been ill for at least one full qualifying day
- You did not tell your employer within their deadline, and had no good reason for the delay
Self-employed people are outside SSP entirely. That is a definitional point rather than a refusal.
The Reasons That Are Not Legitimate
These come up constantly and none of them is a valid basis for withholding SSP.
"You do not earn enough." The earnings threshold was abolished on 6 April 2026. There is no minimum you have to earn. Any policy, handbook or payroll setting still applying a figure of £123, £125 or £129 a week is describing law that no longer exists.
"The first three days are unpaid." Waiting days were abolished on the same date. SSP is payable from the first qualifying day of the absence.
"You are on a zero-hours contract." Contract type does not decide it. If you are an employee and you have done work for them, you are in scope.
"You have not given us a doctor's note." Not for the first seven calendar days, where self-certification is the evidence.
"We do not think you are really ill." An employer's suspicion is not one of the exclusions. Suspected abuse of sick leave is a disciplinary matter to be handled as one, not a reason to stop a statutory payment.
"We are a small business and cannot afford it." Employers have not been able to reclaim SSP since the Percentage Threshold Scheme ended in 2014. It is a cost of employing people, and being unable to afford it is not an exemption.
Withholding SSP is an unlawful deduction from wages. It is not a grey area, and it is not something an employment contract can override. A contract can offer more than SSP but it cannot offer less.
Step One: Ask, in Writing
Start with a short, unemotional email to your manager or payroll. Set out the dates you were off, your qualifying days, what you expected to be paid and what you received, and ask them to explain the difference.
Put it in writing even if you have already asked in person. You want a dated record and a written answer, and a surprising proportion of these are resolved at this stage because the answer is a payroll error nobody had spotted.
Step Two: Form SSP1
If your employer maintains you are not entitled, they should give you form SSP1. That form states why SSP is not being paid, or that it is coming to an end, and it is the document you need for two reasons.
It puts the employer's reason in writing, which is what any later challenge turns on. And it is what the DWP will want if you go on to claim New Style Employment and Support Allowance or Universal Credit, because SSP1 is the evidence that SSP is not available to you.
Ask for it explicitly. An employer who refuses SSP but will not put a reason on an SSP1 is usually an employer who knows the reason will not hold up.
Step Three: HMRC's Statutory Payment Disputes Team
This is the part most people do not know exists, and it is free.
HMRC has a Statutory Payment Disputes Team that makes formal decisions on whether SSP is due. You contact them, explain the position, and they can rule on your entitlement. Their decision is binding on the employer, and HMRC can recover the money.
You do not need a solicitor, there is no fee, and you do not have to have left the job. Bring the dates, your payslips, the SSP1 if you have one, and your written exchange with the employer.
Do not sit on it. There are time limits on asking HMRC to decide an SSP question, so raise it as soon as the employer's answer is clear rather than waiting to see whether the next payslip fixes it. If you are close to a deadline, contact HMRC first and gather the paperwork afterwards.
Step Four: Employment Tribunal
Unpaid SSP can also be pursued as an unlawful deduction from wages at an employment tribunal, and that route can be combined with other claims if the sickness absence has produced wider problems, such as disability discrimination or dismissal.
Tribunal claims run to strict time limits and you have to notify Acas for early conciliation before starting one. The limits have been changing, so check the current position rather than relying on a figure you half remember, and get advice early rather than close to the deadline.
For a straightforward "they did not pay me SSP" case, HMRC is usually the faster and simpler route. The tribunal matters more when SSP is one part of a bigger dispute.
Where to Get Help
- Acas runs a free helpline on 0300 123 1100 for employment rights questions, and is impartial between employer and employee
- Citizens Advice can help you work out entitlement and put a claim together
- Your union, if you are a member, will usually take this up directly with the employer
- HMRC for the statutory payment decision itself
If You Are Worried About the Consequences
It is a real concern and worth naming. Asking for money you are legally owed is not misconduct, and treating you badly because you asserted a statutory right can itself be unlawful.
Keep the tone factual and keep the record complete: dates, amounts, who said what and when. If things do deteriorate, that record is what turns your account into evidence. And if you are not being paid at all while off sick, check whether you can claim Universal Credit in the meantime, because waiting for a dispute to resolve without income is not something you should have to do quietly.