maternity allowance for self employed/freelancers

[nellieloula]

Morning - has anyone had any experience of claiming maternity allowance as a freelancer/sole trader? I heard you can apply from 26 weeks but if anyone has any more info about it I'd love to know. thanks!

Hi Nellie I need to find out about this too! seeing midwife this morning and will ask about it. I have picked up claim form from from Job centre and am planning on looking at it tonight I think it is from 26th weeks though. Its some really complicated way of putting it like the 15th week before your due date or something. Hopefully someone else will come along who knows more about this!

Hi.

I did this with my second child as I was self-employed. They will give you approx £100 a week (it will have gone up from 2005/06) or a portion of your salary. It's actually whichever is a lesser amount for them to pay. So bank on the fact you'll be getting the £100 a week. Yes you put the claim in from week 26 of pregnancy.

They will set you off on it from the 12th week before the baby is born (even if you ask for it to come once baby has been born - so save it up!)

The forms are a bit complicated and you don't get much advice. You'll need to give them as much evidence as possible re your wages. Do you give yourself wage slips?

I hope this helps. If you need advice don't go into your local job centre plus office - they're rubbish. You'll get more advice from HM Revenue and Customs.

You'll also need your MATB1 form signed by a doctor to be sent off. Don't bank on them sending it back to you though! They didn't send mine back. You'll need it for claiming your free prescriptions and dental care for the year for yourself for the first year of your baby's life.

I hope this helps. xx

Hi, I've organised this for myself - also a freelancer - though I'm starting it from 34 weeks so not sure what earliest you can claim is is. You can get benefit for 39 weeks now - it's gone up this year.

First you need to call Jobcentre Plus on 0800 055 6688, explain you're freelance and ask them to send you a form for Maternity Allowance. You'll also need to get a Mat B 1 (?) form from your midwife which just confirms your due date.

The form is a bit complicated and you have to calculate the weeks in which you've worked in the run up to pregnancy and birth. But I rang up to clarify and was told I didn't need to include wage slips etc as I was self-employed. I posted it yesterday so hope it's all alright.

It asked things like whether you were giving up being freelance to have the baby. I thought this was confusing because although I won't work or earn money for at least a year, I won't actually be giving up my freelance tax status, iyswim. They said if I was concerned about anything just to put a covering note in the box provided, which I did.

Here's the website but really you just need to phone up. Good luck with your pg!

www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Dev_008115.xml.html

Thank you all so much - that is really helpful. I'll get on with it asap.

Thanks for this Novice knitter and funkimummy. I hve got from and MATB1 so just need to fill them in now

As long as you pay your class 2 NI contributions regularly as a freelancer/self employed, it is fairly straightforward to claim. Also , now you can do 10 "keeping in touch" days while you are on Mat leave and not lose any mat allowance, although I'm not sure how this works in practice or how they "police" it was going to do a bit of research on that myself... unless anyone here knows?

What funkimummy says about getting it from the 12th week before you are due is now no longer true. You can start gettting it anytime, right up to the day your baby is born, and then for 39 weeks thereafter.

Actually, where is my MatB1? Don't think they returned it.... grrrrrrrr