How much notice should I get?

By law, one week if you have worked there between one month and two years, then one week for each complete year, up to a maximum of twelve weeks. Your contract may promise more — often one or three months — and if it does, that is what you get. It cannot give you less than the statutory minimum.

Is notice pay tax-free like redundancy pay?

No, and this is the most common mistake. The £30,000 tax-free allowance applies to redundancy payments. Notice pay is treated as normal earnings — since April 2018 even a payment in lieu of notice is taxed through the post-employment notice pay rules, with income tax and National Insurance both deducted.

My employer went bust. Will I get my full notice pay?

Usually not. The state pays only the statutory notice period, not a longer contractual one, and caps it at £751 a week (£783 in Northern Ireland). It then deducts any earnings and any benefits for that period — including benefits you could have claimed but did not. Claim Universal Credit or Jobseeker’s Allowance promptly; if you are refused, send the rejection letter to the Insolvency Service so nothing notional is deducted.

Does the £751 weekly cap apply to my notice pay?

Only if the state is paying because your employer is insolvent. A solvent employer owes your actual full pay for the notice period, with no cap at all. The same £751 figure appears in both places, which is why the two get confused — it comes from different sections of the Act and only one of them limits notice pay.

What is garden leave?

Your employer keeps you employed through the notice period but tells you not to come in. You are paid as normal throughout, because the employment has not ended. It is a contractual arrangement rather than a statutory one, so what you are owed depends on your contract.

Earning & Workemployment · income · tax

UK Notice Pay Calculator

Your job is ending and you want to know what notice you’re owed — and what actually lands after tax.

Your employer owes you notice when they end your job: one week if you have been there under two years, then one week for every full year, up to twelve. This works out your weeks and what they pay — and then the part people get wrong. Notice pay is not covered by the £30,000 tax-free allowance that shelters redundancy pay; if it is paid in lieu it is taxed as normal earnings. And if your employer has gone bust and the state pays instead, the amount is capped at £751 a week and reduced by benefits you claimed — or could have claimed, even if you never applied.

Basis: ERA 1996 s.86 (notice periods) · ss.88–91 (pay during notice) · s.227 (the week’s-pay cap does NOT extend to notice) · s.184/s.186 (insolvency route, £751/week from 6 Apr 2026, SI 2026/310) · ITEPA 2003 s.402D (PENP) and s.403 (£30,000 exemption) · NI cap £783 (SR 2026/57) · verified 2026-08-10

Closest to your situation?

paid in lieu — I leave now working my notice out my employer went bust contract says more than statutory

Not quite? Describe it in your own words.

Describe your situation in a sentence — any language. I fill the form; the tool does the math.

How is your notice being handled?The decisive input: it changes both the amount and the tax. Paid in lieu is taxed as earnings with no £30,000 shelter. The insolvency route is capped weekly and reduced by benefits.Complete years worked thereFull years of continuous employment. Part years do not add a week — at 4 years 11 months you get 4 weeks, not 5.Your weekly pay before tax (£)Gross, before tax. Monthly salary ÷ 4.333 if that is easier.

The numbers

Notice you’re owed: 5 weeks; the statutory minimum
Notice pay before tax: £3,500; 5 × £700
Estimated income tax: −£700; at 20% — National Insurance is on top
Roughly what lands: £2,800; before National Insurance

Preview only — using a default Situation, Service, Weekly pay.

The operator’s read

Caution

Notice pay is taxed. The £30,000 tax-free allowance people know about covers redundancy pay — it does not cover notice pay. Since April 2018 a payment in lieu of notice is treated as normal earnings, so income tax and National Insurance both come off. On £3,500 that is roughly £700 of tax before NI.

Good sign

The £751-a-week cap you may have read about does not apply here. That cap limits statutory redundancy pay and state-paid notice when an employer is insolvent — a solvent employer owes your actual full pay for the notice period, however high it is.

Your next step

UK Redundancy Pay Calculator — statutory entitlement 2026 →Made redundant? Notice pay is separate from redundancy pay — work out that one too.Quit Runway (Can I Afford to Leave?) →See how many months the total covers at your real costs.

Wrong answer, a missing option, or a tool you wish existed?

Methodology

Statutory notice (ERA 1996 s.86): nothing under one month of service; one week from one month to under two years; then one week for each complete year, capped at twelve weeks from twelve years onward. Northern Ireland is identical (ERO(NI) 1996 art.118). Only complete years count — 4 years 11 months gives 4 weeks.

Where your contract gives longer notice, the contract wins and this tool uses it. Note a side effect: once contractual notice exceeds the statutory minimum by a week or more, ERA s.87(4) switches off the ss.88–91 guarantee that you are paid a week’s pay during notice when sick or when no work is available, leaving your contract terms to govern.

Pay during notice from a solvent employer is your actual full pay. The week’s-pay cap in ERA s.227 applies to redundancy payments and certain tribunal awards, and notice pay is not on that list — a widely repeated error.

Tax: a payment in lieu of notice is charged as earnings under the post-employment notice pay rules (ITEPA 2003 s.402D) and is expressly excluded from the £30,000 termination exemption in s.403. Income tax and Class 1 National Insurance both apply. The estimate here applies your chosen income-tax rate to the whole amount and does not model National Insurance, the personal allowance, or the exact PENP formula, which prorates by pay period.

Insolvency: notice pay becomes a claim on the National Insurance Fund (ERA s.184), limited to the STATUTORY notice period, capped at £751 a week in Great Britain and £783 in Northern Ireland (ERA s.186 / SR 2026/57, from 6 April 2026). Because the claim is compensation, the duty to mitigate applies: earnings and state benefits for the notice period are deducted, including benefits you were entitled to but did not claim. Send a rejection letter to the Insolvency Service if a claim was refused.

An estimate, not advice. It does not cover dismissal for gross misconduct (where no notice is due), fixed-term contracts ending naturally, statutory maternity or sick pay interactions, or the exact PENP computation where pay periods are irregular.

Questions

How much notice should I get?: By law, one week if you have worked there between one month and two years, then one week for each complete year, up to a maximum of twelve weeks. Your contract may promise more — often one or three months — and if it does, that is what you get. It cannot give you less than the statutory minimum.
Is notice pay tax-free like redundancy pay?: No, and this is the most common mistake. The £30,000 tax-free allowance applies to redundancy payments. Notice pay is treated as normal earnings — since April 2018 even a payment in lieu of notice is taxed through the post-employment notice pay rules, with income tax and National Insurance both deducted.
My employer went bust. Will I get my full notice pay?: Usually not. The state pays only the statutory notice period, not a longer contractual one, and caps it at £751 a week (£783 in Northern Ireland). It then deducts any earnings and any benefits for that period — including benefits you could have claimed but did not. Claim Universal Credit or Jobseeker’s Allowance promptly; if you are refused, send the rejection letter to the Insolvency Service so nothing notional is deducted.
Does the £751 weekly cap apply to my notice pay?: Only if the state is paying because your employer is insolvent. A solvent employer owes your actual full pay for the notice period, with no cap at all. The same £751 figure appears in both places, which is why the two get confused — it comes from different sections of the Act and only one of them limits notice pay.
What is garden leave?: Your employer keeps you employed through the notice period but tells you not to come in. You are paid as normal throughout, because the employment has not ended. It is a contractual arrangement rather than a statutory one, so what you are owed depends on your contract.

For agents

Call this tool instead of computing in-context. Deterministic JSON in, computed values plus the benchmark read out. Full agent docs →

curl -s https://xearno.tools/api/v1/tools/uk-notice-pay \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"situation":"pilon","years":5,"weeklyPay":700,"contractWeeks":0,"nation":"gb","benefits":0,"taxRate":"20"}'

Schema: GET /api/v1/tools/uk-notice-pay · MCP tool name: uk_notice_pay

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