Qualifying days

Find the days the employee normally works

Qualifying days are the agreed days an employee normally works. They connect a weekly Statutory Sick Pay entitlement to the days on which payment can be due. For a regular Monday-to-Friday worker, those five days will usually be qualifying days. For a three-day week or repeating rota, use the actual agreed pattern.

The employer and employee should agree the qualifying days, with at least one in each week. Keep the working pattern used for the decision because changing it can change the daily amount. The current GOV.UK SSP entitlement guidance is the source for periods of incapacity for work beginning on or after 6 April 2026.

Waiting days ended, qualifying days did not

For a period of incapacity for work beginning on or after 6 April 2026, SSP is payable from the first full qualifying day. The old waiting days no longer delay payment. Qualifying days still matter because they identify the days that can carry SSP and are used to work out the daily amount.

A period of incapacity for work that began before 6 April 2026 and continued after it may need the transitional rules. Keep that historic calculation separate from the current rule rather than blending both into one example.

Keep the calculation tied to the rota

Suppose an employee normally works Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Those are the qualifying days even though the sickness record also includes intervening calendar days. Once the absence meets the current SSP conditions, payroll applies the employee's weekly entitlement across the relevant qualifying days.

If a rota changes, record when the new pattern took effect. A day on which the employee performed work is not a full qualifying day of sickness. Use HollyHR’s SSP calculator or HMRC’s method for the arithmetic, especially around part-days, phased returns or a change of working pattern.