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Pay employees Statutory Sick Pay

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Summary

How to add new, amend, or delete existing Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) in Sage Payroll.

Description

By law, you must pay Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to all eligible employees who are off work due to sickness. Sage Payroll contains the most up-to-date legislation to ensure you’re compliant. 

To find out more about this, visit gov.uk.

Before 6 April 2026

After entering the employees sickness details, the system will check to see if the employee qualifies. If they do, it will apply the correct amount of SSP automatically. 

After 6 April 2026

All employees will be eligible for SSP. The amount they receive will depend on the Average Weekly Earnings (AWE).

NOTE:

Although SSP is a statutory payment, it isn't reclaimable from HMRC. Your P32 report won't show an SSP reclaim amount.

Resolution

If you prefer to watch a video on the process, select the play button below.

SSP qualifying rules

To understand the changes to SSP from 6 April 2026, read Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) - qualifying rules and Changes to statutory sick pay for 2026/2027.

For employees to qualify for SSP, their average weekly earnings must be at least £123 (2024/25) or £125 (2025/26).

We'll calculate this based on the pay runs already processed for this employee.

When this is less than £123 (2024/25) or £125 (2025/26) per week, you'll see a message and you have two options:

  1. Issue certificate SSP1. This means the employee has earned less than £123 (2024/25) or £125 (2025/26) per week and doesn't qualify for SSP. Select the SPP1 link to download the form to give to your employee.
  2. Manually set the AWE value. Your employee has earned more than £123 (2024/25) or £125 (2025/26), but the earnings in your Payroll are less than this. This can happen if you started using Payroll part-way through the tax year.
  3. Enter the employee average weekly earnings.

How to pay employees SSP

To pay an employee SSP, you must first enter their absence details. You can create a new instance of sickness or extend an existing one. To find out how, choose an option below.

NOTE:

An employee's normal pay doesn’t adjust automatically when SSP is in effect. You’ll need to edit other payments to account for the SSP if required.  

▼New sickness
  1. Select Summary from the menu bar.
  2. From the required pay cycle, Select Process Pay Run.
  3. Check the pay date is correct, then select Next.
  4. Select the relevant employee, then choose Add Absence.
  5. Select Sickness, then complete the following details:
    • Documentation Received. If the employee has provided you with evidence of their incapacity to work, choose Yes

      NOTE:

      If you don't choose Yes, SSP won't calculate.

    • Pregnancy-related Illness. If the sickness relates to the employee’s pregnancy, select this checkbox
    • Start Date. Enter the start date of the period of sickness that qualifies for SSP
    • End Date. Enter the end date of the period of sickness

      NOTE:

      SSP pays up to the payment date. If you're unsure when the employee returns, use the payment date as the end date. In the following pay periods, keep extending the End Date. Don't keep entering new lines of absence

    • Pension Earnings. Select this if SSP payments are pensionable earnings
    • Qualifying Earnings. Select this if the SSP payment is subject to qualifying earnings. This is the amount your pension contributions are get based on if you contribute to a pension scheme. For more information, read Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) - qualifying rules
  6. Select Save and complete your pay run as normal.
▼Extend existing sickness
  1. Select Summary from the menu bar.
  2. From the required pay cycle, Select Process Pay Run.
  3. Check the pay date is correct, then select Next.
  4. Select the relevant employee.
  5. Select the existing Sick Leave that you want to extend.
  6. Enter the new End Date.
  7. Select Save and complete your pay run as normal.

Pensions

Employers need to keep paying pension contributions while employees are on sick leave. Base these contributions on the employee's pay before their leave. You can set the pension contribution to a fixed amount in the pay run using the Manage contributions option. When the employee returns, you can change it back. For more information, read How to handle employer pension contributions for employees receiving statutory pay.

Changing or removing sickness

You can change the details of a sickness record or delete it. If the employee has already received SSP, you can reclaim it. Payroll will recalculate the SSP due based on the changes made. For more information on editing a previous pay run, read Make changes to a completed pay run.

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