Redundancy
Statutory redundancy pay: who qualifies and how much
The legal minimum an employer must pay when a job disappears, the conditions that open the right, and the situations that close it.
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Statutory redundancy pay is owed to an employee dismissed because the job has gone, provided they have at least two years of continuous employment with the employer on the relevant date. It is worth half a week’s pay for each complete year of service under the age of 22, one week’s pay for each year between 22 and 40, and one and a half weeks’ pay for each year at 41 or over, counting back from the relevant date and stopping at 20 years. A week’s pay is the normal weekly pay before tax, capped at £751 in Great Britain and £783 in Northern Ireland for relevant dates from 6 April 2026, so nobody can receive more than £22,530 in Great Britain. The payment is lost if you unreasonably refuse a suitable alternative job, and it is not due to the self-employed, to workers who are not employees, or after a dismissal for misconduct.
Your statutory redundancy pay in three numbers
Statutory redundancy pay (Great Britain)
£5,220
| Weeks of pay | 9.0 |
| Weekly pay used | £580 |
| Same case in Northern Ireland | £5,220 |
The two-year rule, measured on the right day
The qualifying period is two years of continuous employment ending with the relevant date (section 155). The relevant date is normally the last day of notice. Where the employer pays in lieu or gives less than the statutory minimum notice, section 145(5) adds the statutory notice for this purpose. Someone with one year and fifty weeks of service on the day they are dismissed with pay in lieu therefore reaches two years once the week of statutory notice is added. Service starts on the first day of work; weeks of sickness, holiday or maternity leave inside a contract keep counting. The guide to the relevant date gives worked dates for each case.
The amount: three age bands and a cap
Count back from the relevant date in complete years, at most 20. Each year earns 1.5 weeks if you were 41 or over for all of it, one week if you were 22 or over, half a week otherwise (section 162). Multiply by a week’s pay, capped at £751. The table shows what that gives for a few typical careers at a weekly pay of £600:
| Age at the relevant date | Complete years | Weeks | Pay at £600 a week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 4 | 3.5 | £2,100 |
| 34 | 10 | 10.0 | £6,000 |
| 45 | 15 | 17.0 | £10,200 |
| 58 | 25 | 28.5 | £17,100 |
The cap is the one in force on the relevant date: £751 from 6 April 2026, £719 in 2025/26, £700 in 2024/25. Earning above it changes nothing: at £1,200 a week the calculation still uses £751. For the full grid of ages and years, see the redundancy pay table.
What counts as redundancy
The law recognises three situations: the business closes, the workplace where you are employed closes, or the employer needs fewer people to do work of a particular kind. Changing the job title while the work carries on, or replacing an employee with a contractor doing the same tasks, does not make a genuine redundancy. A redundancy that is genuine can still be unfair if the selection was not objective or the consultation was skipped; that question goes to a tribunal and does not change the statutory payment, which is due either way.
Selection pools, scoring and last-in-first-out are matters of fairness, not of the amount. GOV.UK lists reasons for which you can never be chosen lawfully: pregnancy or maternity leave, part-time or fixed-term status, trade union membership, whistleblowing and the other protected grounds. Being chosen for one of them is automatically unfair, whatever your length of service.
When the right is lost
Three situations remove the statutory payment. The first is accepting a new contract with the same or an associated employer that starts within four weeks of the old one ending: continuity carries on, so there is no redundancy. The second is unreasonably refusing an offer of suitable alternative employment; whether a job is suitable depends on the work, the pay, the hours, the place and your circumstances, and you are entitled to a 4-week trial without losing the right (suitable alternative employment). The third is dismissal for misconduct, which is a different kind of dismissal altogether. Some groups are outside the scheme entirely: share fishermen, Crown servants, the armed forces and police, and domestic servants who are members of the employer’s family.
Lay-offs and short-time working
You do not always have to wait to be dismissed. An employee laid off without pay, or on short time earning less than half a week’s pay, for more than 4 weeks in a row or 6 weeks in a 13-week period can claim redundancy pay by writing to the employer, then giving notice. The employer can resist the claim only by showing that normal work is likely to resume within four weeks and last at least thirteen. The lay-off guide sets out the timetable.
Getting paid, and the deadline
The employer should pay on or soon after the last day, with a written statement showing how the amount was worked out. If nothing arrives, write to the employer, then go to Acas for early conciliation and, if needed, to an employment tribunal: the claim must be made within 6 months of the relevant date. Statutory redundancy pay is tax-free up to £30,000 together with any other redundancy payment from the employer; notice pay and holiday pay are taxed as earnings (redundancy pay and tax). If you are offered more than the statutory amount, the enhanced scheme in your contract or in the employer’s offer applies, and voluntary redundancy explains how to compare an offer with the legal floor.