An update containing the new Statutory Bereavement Pay for Northern Ireland will be scheduled for release early in the 2026 tax year – dates to be confirmed.
⚠️Content Warning: This section discusses bereavement and pregnancy loss, which some readers may find distressing.
What will change?
Unlike the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland employees will be able to claim bereavement pay from their first day of employment, with no waiting period required.
The entitlement covers the loss of a child under 18 years old, stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy, and pregnancy loss (miscarriage) up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Eligible employees can receive up to two weeks' statutory pay, either as two consecutive weeks or two separate weeks.
Once Paycircle is updated, it will enable Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay Northern Ireland to be paid via a special pay element and submitted to HMRC. New fields will also be available to indicate miscarriage and a Northern Ireland workplace postcode. Further details will be available on release.
Temporary workaround
Paycircle will not be able to accommodate Bereavement Pay for Northern Ireland from 6 April. Should a Northern Ireland Bereavement payment need to be processed in the meantime, workaround steps are below.
From 6 April 2026, Enter Bereavement Pay for Northern Ireland as standard Parental Bereavement Pay.
Check that the employee is eligible for Statutory Bereavement Pay for Northern Ireland.
In the current period, add a change and select Parental Bereavement Pay.
Calculate the amount to pay to the employee, based on the statutory parental pay weekly rate of £194.32, for the 2026-27 tax year, and add this to the pay element.
Process Pay as normal.
📌Note: This value will be reclaimed from HMRC as standard Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay.
Once the Bereavement Pay for Northern Ireland update is available, the affected employee's Year to Date (YTD) values will need to be adjusted.
Find the team members' records and edit their Year to Dates.
Reduce the Total Parental Bereavement Pay by the amount processed for Bereavement Pay Northern Ireland.
Add the relevant amount into the new Total Parental Bereavement Pay - Northern Ireland YTD field.
If the payment was for a miscarriage, select the Miscarriage checkbox; otherwise, leave this blank.
Save the changes.
In the next FPS, the updated YTD values will be sent to HMRC and the reclaimed amounts will be recalculated and assigned to the relevant parental payment type.
Additional information
Nominal Journals will only display values that were processed in the relevant period, and will not include the YTD adjustments. This includes cumulative reports run over multiple periods. You may need to make adjustments within your accounting system to reflect the changes if the nominal codes differ between Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP) and Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay Northern Ireland (SPBPNIRE).
The Paycircle P32 report will only display values as they were processed in the relevant period and will not include the adjustments. This includes cumulative reports run over multiple periods. This means that the reclaimed fields on the P32 report will not match the EPS, but the overall amount due to HMRC should be the same, as the adjustment simply moves the YTD values from SPBP to SPBPNIRE.
HMRC submissions will be updated as relevant. The employee YTDs will be updated and sent on the FPS, and the EPS will contain the adjusted figures in the relevant reclaim fields.