Statutory redundancy pay 2026/27
Statutory redundancy pay is a legal minimum built from three things: your age, your length of service and your weekly pay. Everything else is detail.
The building blocks
For each full year of service you receive half a week's pay for years worked while under the age of 22, one week's pay for years worked between 22 and 40, and one and a half weeks' pay for years worked from 41 onwards. The bands are applied to the years themselves, working backwards from the age at which employment ends, not to your age overall.
Only the last twenty years of service count. Weekly pay is capped: at £751.00 in England, Scotland and Wales for redundancies on or after 6th April 2026, and at £783.00 in Northern Ireland. That makes the maximum statutory payment £22,530.00 in Great Britain and £23,490.00 in Northern Ireland.
Who qualifies
You need two years or more of continuous service with the same employer, and you must have been dismissed by reason of redundancy. A redundancy arises where the employer has ceased or intends to cease the business, or has ceased or intends to cease carrying it on where you were employed, or where the requirement for employees to do work of a particular kind has diminished.
What is not statutory redundancy pay
Several payments often arrive together and people conflate them. Notice pay, or payment in lieu of notice, is separate and is worked out on your length of service under different rules. Accrued but untaken holiday must be paid separately. Any enhanced redundancy payment above the statutory figure comes from your contract or from a settlement agreement, not from the statute.
Tax
The first £30,000.00 of a genuine redundancy payment is normally free of income tax and National Insurance. Anything above that is taxable. Payments that are really earnings in another guise, notably payment in lieu of notice, are taxable in full and do not use up the £30,000.00 exemption.
Time limits
There is a six-month time limit from the date employment ends for bringing a claim about statutory redundancy pay to an employment tribunal. For unfair dismissal the limit is three months less one day, and early conciliation through Acas must normally be started first. These limits are strict, and missing them usually ends the claim.
Figures checked against GOV.UK on 18th September 2026.