Carer's Leave 2026: Your Right to 1 Week's Unpaid Leave Explained

What is Carer's Leave?

The Carer's Leave Act 2023 came into force on 6 April 2024, introducing a new statutory right for employees who have caring responsibilities alongside paid work. It gives eligible employees up to one week of unpaid leave per year to arrange or provide care for a dependant with a long-term care need.

This is separate from — and in addition to — annual leave, parental leave, and time off for dependants in an emergency (which remains a separate, older right covering sudden emergencies rather than planned or ongoing care).

Who qualifies?

Carer's Leave is a day-one right — there is no minimum length of service required. Any employee (not just those with 26 weeks' service, as is required for many other family-related rights) can use it from their first day in a role, provided they have a qualifying dependant.

What counts as a "dependant"?

For Carer's Leave purposes, a dependant is:

• A spouse, civil partner, child, or parent, or
• Someone who lives in the same household as the employee (excluding a tenant, lodger, boarder or employee), or
• Anyone who reasonably relies on the employee for care — for example, an elderly neighbour or a friend with no one else to help.

Crucially, the dependant must have a long-term care need, meaning one of the following:

1. A condition that requires, or is likely to require, care for more than 3 months;
2. A disability as defined under the Equality Act 2010; or
3. Care needs due to old age.

This distinguishes Carer's Leave from the older "time off for dependants" right, which covers short-term emergencies regardless of whether the condition is long-term.

How much leave can I take?

The entitlement is one week per year, calculated according to your normal working pattern:

The leave can be taken as:

• Individual days
• Half days
• One continuous block of up to a week

This flexibility is deliberate — caring responsibilities rarely fit neatly into a single block, so the law allows staggered use across the year as needs arise.

Is Carer's Leave paid?

Some employers choose to offer paid carer's leave as an enhanced benefit, recognising the retention and wellbeing value of supporting staff with caring responsibilities. It's worth checking your employee handbook or asking HR directly, as this varies widely between employers.

How to request Carer's Leave

1. Give notice: you must give notice of twice the length of leave you want, plus one day — or 3 days' notice, whichever is longer. For example, to take 2 days off, you need to give at least 5 days' notice.
2. State the dates and confirm (informally) that the leave is for caring for a dependant with a long-term care need — you don't need to provide detailed medical evidence.
3. Your employer can postpone (but not refuse) the leave if the business would be "unduly disrupted", but must allow the leave to be taken within a month of the original request and give notice of the postponement equal to the length of leave requested.

Carer's Leave vs using annual leave: which is better?

If you can afford to go unpaid, Carer's Leave is valuable precisely because it protects your paid annual leave for actual rest and holidays, rather than being eaten into by ongoing caring duties. For short, unavoidable caring commitments where you need the income, using paid annual leave (if available) may be the more practical short-term choice — but Carer's Leave gives you a dedicated, protected fallback that doesn't come at the cost of your holiday entitlement.

Summary

Carer's Leave is a modest but meaningful right: one week a year, unpaid, available from day one, usable flexibly, and free from onerous evidence requirements. For the estimated millions of UK employees juggling paid work with caring for a parent, partner, or child with long-term needs, it provides a legal safety net that didn't exist before April 2024.