Maternity pay when Director of company

[WeGoAgain123]

Hi there

I'm trying to get my head around maternity support as a limited company director, I have an accountant but he on leave for the next few weeks so thought I'd ask on here if anyone has been in same boat.

What maternity pay am I eligible for?

I am a director and sole employee of 2 trading company's under one limited company. I will be shitting one side down but probably continuing to work the other after an initial couple of weeks post birth.

I have no idea what I would be eligible for and how it's paid for? Last time I was pregnant I was employed by a company

Do you have a contract of employment or a contract for services? A director working in a business, paid a salary is usually an employee and entitled to maternity pay as any other employee would be.

How long have you been employed? And maternity pay is based on your normal salary, capped at a certain level.

You haven’t provided enough information to be able to provide you with the answers.

My understanding from my own research is that you count as an employee so have to pay yourself statutory maternity pay from the company pot. The company can then claim back most of the cost of this SMP through the government.

The amount of SMP you get will be dependent on what you've been paying yourself in wages (not including dividends).

It depends whether or not you are an employee as pp said above whether it is a contract or employment or a contract for services. I’d say that you would be best speaking to an employment lawyer rather than your accountant but sounds like you only mean for the two weeks you won’t be working? If so expense of getting advice might not be worth it and you’d be best just to take annual leave?

When I was pregnant (12 years ago) I was also the director of a ltd company, but not an employee.

I was able to claim SMP directly from the government. It was paid in a lump.

I was also working for the NHS at the time and I got maternity pay there, too.

It may have resulted from a complicated situation where I’d been working abroad and returned to the nhs, I hadn’t been there long enough to qualify for full maternity pay when I became pregnant.

So I got two lots of SMP instead.

@Fleur405

It depends whether or not you are an employee as pp said above whether it is a contract or employment or a contract for services. I’d say that you would be best speaking to an employment lawyer rather than your accountant but sounds like you only mean for the two weeks you won’t be working? If so expense of getting advice might not be worth it and you’d be best just to take annual leave?

I'm the sole employee of my company which is why I need to keep working one side of the business.

My income will half though as I'll be shutting down one side for a good few months as I can't do that from home.

@WeGoAgain123 I am director of my business but I'm also an employee on payroll so I imagine I will just claim as normal. I just don't know if I need to tell hmrc from the business side of things about an employee going on maternity. Just not sure. Hmrc are doing 2 webinars about it but one is like this week and I'm working and the next is Feb 14th which is 6 weeks before my due date 😅

Have you set up payroll for yourself ? If you have this, you can claim SMP through your company this way. The government will then repay the SMP to your company in a lump sum.

If you aren’t set up on payroll then your accountant can do this and they will ensure you have paid sufficient NI contributions to be eligible for SMP through your company