Scale-up rules now count neonatal leave toward earnings tests
04 Aug 2026
If you're on a Scale-up Worker visa and you or your partner took time off around the birth of a child, updated Home Office rules mean that time no longer has to hurt your earnings evidence.
Appendix Scale-up now lists statutory neonatal leave alongside maternity, paternity, parental, and shared parental leave as time that can count toward the earnings requirement, both for your next permission to stay and for settlement. The guidance text says these types of leave, including "statutory maternity, paternity, parental, neonatal, or shared parental leave," qualify as periods that meet the earnings rule even without a full salary being paid during the leave itself. This applies to unsponsored permission applications and to the 24-month earnings requirement used for settlement. The change appears in guidance updated on 3 August 2026.
In practice, this means that if you or your partner were on statutory neonatal leave during the period being assessed, you don't need to show your normal salary was paid throughout. You do still need to show your job was paying at the required rate before the leave started.
What to do: if you or your partner took statutory neonatal leave in the period covered by your next application, whether that's a permission to stay renewal or your five-year settlement application, keep your payslips from before the leave began and any letter or documentation confirming the leave was statutory neonatal leave. Have both ready to include with your application.
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