• In the 2024 tax year, employees receive up to five paid days of sick leave
• In the 2023 tax year, it was three paid days sick leave

Find out more about Statutory sick pay legislation.

NOTE: You can implement your own sick pay scheme instead of SSP, as long as it matches or exceeds SSP pay levels.

Before you start

To enable Sage Payroll to verify eligibility, enter the employee's start date in their record. SSP eligibility requires a minimum of 13 weeks (91 days) of employment.

To check or enter this:

1. Click Processing, then click Employee Details.
2. Open the record of the employee you need to process SSP for.
    TIP: If you use profiles, you must edit the employee profile to include the new SSP payment. 
3. In the Personnel tab, under the Salary section, enter the correct date in the Start Date.
4. If you made changes, click Save, then close the record.

Process statutory sick pay

Set up the payment

 TIP: Use our Set up a new payment article to verify the current tax settings for this payment type. 

1. On the menu bar, click Company/Payroll then click Payments.
2. Click New.
3. Enter the name of the payment in the Title field. For example, Sick Pay.
4. Select Statutory Sick Pay in the Type field.
5. Ensure the Deduct, PRSI, Pension, and SSP Percentage settings are the same as above.
6. Click Save then click Close.

Set Default SSP Payment

1. Click Company/Payroll, then click Company Details.
2. Click the BIK/SSP tab and drop in the payment into the Set Default SSP Payment field.
3. Click OK.

Set up a rate in Employee Details

You need to calculate and enter your employee's normal daily rate of pay when you process their SSP. For guidance on this calculation, you can refer to the OPWs guide.

To do this:

• Open the employee's record, then in the Absence tab, enter the SSP Daily Rate. This is your employee's normal daily rate of pay. Your software automatically calculates the SSP due per day using this value.
   TIP: You can also track SSP days taken and remaining in this window.

Record SSP on the Timesheet

1. On the employee's timesheet, click the Holidays/Absence tab.
2. Enter the SSP amount in the Days taken this period field.
   NOTE: When processing SSP, you need to manually deduct your employee's regular payment to adjust for any days not worked.
3. The software will then calculate the amount of SSP due in the period and include it on their payslip.

That's it, you've processed SSP for the employee.

How it's calculated

The employee receives a statutory sick leave payment at 70% of their normal wages, capped at a maximum of €110 per day.

Daily rate x Days taken this period x 0.70. 

If the calculated amount goes over €110, we cap it at €110.

 TIP: If SSP doesn't calculate for an employee, assign them to one or more Employee profiles, which need the Sick pay element selected for use. 

Occasional errors and warnings appear

• SSP days taken exceed entitlement (error) - The employee has exceeded the entitlement of 5 statutory sick leave days in 2024
• SSP days taken exceed entitlement (error) - The employee has exceeded the entitlement of 3 statutory sick leave days in 2023
• No SSP Payment set up - You need to set up a statutory sick pay payment to use. Follow the steps in the Set up the payment section above to do this
• SSP capped at €110 per day - An amount greater than the maximum €110 per day has been entered

No SSP calculating

If you enter amounts only in data entry, SSP won't calculate correctly. You need to enter the days taken this period in the Absence tab for accurate calculation.

Follow the steps in the Process statutory sick pay section above to do this.

Correct SSP

If you process manual SSP using a normal payment element, you must reprocess this correctly. Revenue requires SSP to show on submissions.

If you pay SSP in error, use our Correct SSP paid in error article to correct it.