Parental Leave Pay (PPL) 007-09000000

PPL supports eligible parents or carers to care for a newborn or adopted child. Full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal, contract and self-employed workers may be eligible.

PPL is paid under the Paid Parental Leave scheme and was introduced on 1 January 2011.

It is paid at a base rate based on the national minimum wage. See Rate of Parental Leave Pay (PPL).

For children that are born or adopted:

• on or after 1 July 2023, the PPL scheme became more flexible.
• The maximum entitlement of PPL days will increase on 1 July each year until 1 July 2026 when the maximum entitlement of PPL days will have increased to 26 weeks (130 PPL days)
• The reserved entitlement, meant for partners, other parents or another eligible person to claim will also increase up until 1 July 2026
• See the Resources page for a comparison table
• between 1 July 2020 and before 1 July 2023, PPL is made up of:
• a PPL period, a single continuous block, paid on weekdays, from a date nominated by the customer of up to 12 weeks (60 payable days). It must be claimed within 52 weeks of the child’s birth or adoption.
• 30 Flexible PPL days that must be taken within two years of the child’s birth or anniversary of care
• before 1 July 2020, PPL was made up a PPL period of up to 18 weeks (90 payable days). All days:
• had to be paid as one continuous payment and
• had to be claimed and paid within 52 weeks of the child’s birth or anniversary of care

PPL can be paid after stillbirth or death of a child.

To receive the maximum PPL entitlement, customers must lodge their claim and choose a PPL start date within the time limits for claiming PPL.

See Eligibility for Parental Leave Pay (PPL).

PPL is taxable income and is:

• included in a customer's adjusted taxable income for family assistance payments
• included in the customer’s income for claims or renewals for the Low Income Health Care Card (LIC). See LIC income test
• treated as ordinary income for calculating the rate of payment for income support payments. This automatically reduces or cancels the impacted customer’s (and/or their partner’s) rate of income support payment while they are receiving PPL payments. No additional coding is required

Customers are not eligible for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part B on any days that they receive PPL.

For children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2023, DAP was combined with PPL to form a single, 20 week entitlement. DAP is not payable for children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2023. Fathers and partners will need to claim PPL.

For children born or adopted before 1 July 2023, one customer can receive both PPL and Dad and Partner Pay (DAP) for the same child. However the PPL and DAP periods:

• must be taken at different times, and
• a maximum of 18 weeks of the two payments can be paid

A family can receive a maximum of 20 weeks PPL and DAP combined for the same child. One customer can receive PPL and DAP for different children at the same time.

Customers partnered at the time of their initial claim can receive a maximum entitlement of PPL per child. The remaining 10 days are reserved on a 'use it or lose it' basis for their partner, the other parent or another person. Customers not partnered at the time of their initial claim can receive a maximum entitlement of 100 days per child.

For children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2023:

• Dad and Partner Pay (DAP) ceased, with the 2 weeks (10 payable days) being rolled into PPL
• Parental Leave Pay (PPL) increased to 20 weeks (100 payable days) entitlement. PPL will continue to increase each year until it has a maximum entitlement of 26 weeks (130 PPL days) for children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2026
• PPL became fully flexible, meaning all PPL days are to be treated as ‘flexible’ PPL days where they can be accessed as:
• a single block
• all scattered days
• any combination of smaller blocks and scattered days
• Primary, secondary and tertiary claim types were removed
• Birth mothers no longer need to claim PPL first, or at all, in order for the other parent or partner to receive PPL. Either parent or their partner can claim PPL first
• Approval to claim and approval to share days is required from the birth mother for:
• the partner of the birth mother
• the other parent
• the partner of the other parent
  Note: these approvals will be obtained via an online task
• In cases of adoption, where there is:
• one adoptive parent, they must give approval to claim and approval to share PPL days to any other claimant (that is, partner of the adoptive parent)
• two adoptive parents, the first adoptive parent to claim must give approval to share PPL days to the other adoptive parent. They do not need to give approval to claim
• A family income test will be introduced, in addition to the individual income test. If the customer does not meet the individual income test, then the family income test limit is applied. This applies to both single and partnered customers
• A cap will apply to the number of PPL days for customers who are partnered at the date of claim. For children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2023, 10 PPL days were reserved on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis for their partner, the other parent or another eligible person. The reserved entitlement of PPL days will increase on 1 July 2025 to 15 PPL days and again on 1 July 2026 to 20 PPL days. Note: the birth mother must still provide approval to claim and share the ‘reserved’ PPL days
• Customers who are single at the date of claim can take all 100 days, no cap is applied
• Customers no longer need to have ‘primary care’ of the child on their PPL days, just ‘care’. As more than one customer can have care of a child on a day, multiple customers can claim PPL on the same day. There is a limit on the number of PPL days that can be paid concurrently (PPL days taken by customers for the same child on the same day). From 1 July 2023 the maximum of concurrent dates per child is 10. The number of PPL days that can be taken concurrently with another person increases to 20 days for children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2025
• Fathers and partners may be payable for PPL where the birth mother does not meet the income test or residency test, or is serving a newly arrived residents waiting period (NARWP). Note: The birth mother must still meet the work test even if the birth mother is not claiming PPL for the child

See Claiming and managing Paid Parental Leave (PPL) days for children born or entering care on or after 1 July 2023 and Eligibility for Paid Parental Leave (PPL) for children born or entering care on or after 1 July 2023.