An employee can work for up to 10 KIT days. They use KIT days during their maternity, adoption or additional paternity leave. They won't lose any of their maternity, adoption or additional paternity pay as long as they don't exceed 10 KIT days.

What is a KIT day?

KIT days are to help employees keep in touch with their workplace and allow them to do some work. For example, an employee on maternity leave can choose to attend work for a training course. They can keep in touch with their workplace. It’s usual to pay the employee for any hours they work.

You can also use KIT days to help ease an employee’s eventual return to work.

What is an employee entitled to?

As the purpose of KIT days are to preserve the employee’s status on maternity leave, they continue to receive Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP).

The employer can offset any pay for KIT days against SMP payments or make a contractual payment in addition to this.

What if an employee takes more than 10 KIT days?

Once they use 10 KIT days, they can no longer work while claiming maternity or adoption pay. For any week or part-week worked, they lose a whole week of their maternity or adoption pay.

For example:

An employee works two days in the same week. They lose one whole week’s maternity or adoption pay. If they were to work two days, but in two different weeks, they’d lose two week’s maternity or adoption pay.

To record a KIT day

You can find further information from HMRC at gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/statutory-payments-manual.

To pay an employee for a KIT day

To process the KIT pay, create a new payment and change the name to make it clear to the employee.