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Add Statutory Sick Pay in QuickBooks Online Payroll

by Intuit•35• Updated 1 month ago

Learn how to pay Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to employees who meet the qualifying conditions and are unable to work due to illness. Check what the statutory weekly pay rate is here.

This article is for customers who use QuickBooks Online Core, Premium, or Elite Payroll.

What's changing for 2026/27?

From 6 April 2026, the rules for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) in the UK are changing. Here's what you need to know:

SSP now starts from day one. There's no longer a three-day waiting period. If an employee is too ill to work, SSP is payable from their first day off.

More employees will qualify. The Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) is being removed. This means employees who earn less or work on casual contracts can now qualify for SSP — regardless of how much they earn.

How SSP will be calculated. SSP will be paid at whichever is lower:

80% of the employee's Average Weekly Earnings (AWE), or
The standard flat rate (£123.25 per week for 2026/27)

What if an employee is already on SSP before 6 April 2026?

They'll continue to receive the uprated flat rate until one of the following happens:

They return to work
They use up their SSP entitlement
Their contract ends

📄 See Statutory Sick Pay: Transitional Guidance to learn more.

Linked absences

If an employee has more than one period of sickness, absences within 56 days of each other are still treated as one continuous period.

Add Statutory Sick Pay

Note: Statutory Sick Pay is paid the same way as regular wages.

Go to All apps , select Payroll, then select Employees (Take me there).
Select your employee.
Select Statutory Leave and click Start
Select Statutory Sick Pay (SPP).
Select the start and end dates of the leave. If you’re unsure about the last day of leave, set the best estimated end date and update later in the ‘Leave periods’ section.
Enter the average weekly earnings (AWE). QuickBooks will calculate this for you automatically, unless you're switching from another payroll system or haven't run payroll in QuickBooks before. AWE is based on the 8 weeks before the first day of sickness.
Add any linked Absence days, if applicable.
Save your changes.

Change or delete Statutory Sick Pay

Go to All apps , select Payroll, then select Employees (Take me there).
Select your employee.
Select Start or Edit to open the Pay Types section.
Next to the leave period, select the following:
To edit, select the pencil icon and make the necessary change, then Save.
To delete, select the bin icon and then Delete to confirm.
Select Save.

Fix Statutory Sick Pay deletion error

If you see the error message "You can't delete a leave if you've already run payroll for that period" when trying to delete the Statutory Sick Pay, it means that you are trying to change the Statutory Sick Pay within a completed pay run.

To fix this: Delete the pay run first, then go back and make your changes to the SSP in the employee's profile.

What's next?

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