Parental & dependants leave request

What you need to know

The plain-English guidance that comes with this document.

• These are two different rights — don't muddle them. Unpaid parental leave is planned time to spend with a child. Time off for dependants is for an emergency you couldn't have seen coming. They have different rules, so this form keeps them on separate tracks.
• Unpaid parental leave: 18 weeks per child, and now a day-one right. Each parent can take up to 18 weeks' unpaid leave per child, up to the child's 18th birthday, capped at 4 weeks per child per year. It's normally taken in whole weeks (parents of a disabled child can take single days). Since 6 April 2026 it's available from an employee's first day — the old one-year service requirement is gone. They should give you 21 days' notice, and you can postpone it (not refuse it) by up to 6 months if the timing would genuinely disrupt the business — but you can't postpone it around the time of a birth or adoption.
• Time off for dependants: reasonable, unpaid, and immediate. Everyone has the right, from day one, to reasonable unpaid time off to deal with an emergency involving a dependant — a partner, child, parent, or someone who relies on them. Think a sick child, a collapsed care arrangement, or dealing with a death. It's meant to cover sorting it out — usually a day or two — not extended care. Because it's an emergency, they often can't ask in advance; this form then works as the record after the fact.
• You can't punish someone for taking it. Both are protected rights. Docking pay beyond the unpaid nature of the leave, giving someone a hard time, or counting it against them in an attendance procedure can amount to unlawful detriment. If someone leans on emergency leave a lot, deal with it as a supportive conversation about what's going on — not a disciplinary reflex.
• Ask for little, record even less. You're allowed to know roughly what's happened and how long they'll need — you don't need a medical history or the family's life story. Keep whatever you note secure and brief; it's personal data.
• Neither has to be paid — but you can choose to be kind. There's no legal requirement to pay for either, but some employers offer a day or two of paid emergency leave as goodwill. If you do, apply it consistently so it doesn't look like favouritism.
• Applies UK-wide. Unpaid parental leave and time off for dependants apply across the UK. The day-one change for parental leave is a Great Britain reform; if you're in Northern Ireland, check whether the same applies there yet.