Glossary
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Time off for dependants is a UK statutory right to a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with an emergency involving someone who depends on you. It comes from section 57A of the Employment Rights Act 1996, applies from day one, and has no cap on how often it’s used.
The nearest equivalents elsewhere are FMLA and state sick leave in the US, and family responsibility leave in Canada. None works quite like this one.
What counts
The statute lists five situations, each requiring action that is necessary:
- to provide assistance when a dependant falls ill, gives birth, or is injured or assaulted
- to make arrangements for care for a dependant who is ill or injured
- in consequence of the death of a dependant
- because of the unexpected disruption or termination of care arrangements
- to deal with an unexpected incident involving the employee’s child during school hours
A dependant is a spouse or civil partner, child, parent, or someone living in the same household other than as a tenant, lodger, boarder or employee. For the first two purposes it stretches further, to anyone who reasonably relies on the employee for help when they fall ill or for care to be arranged — which can cover an elderly neighbour or a sibling living elsewhere.
The common thread: the event must be unforeseen. A hospital appointment booked three weeks ago isn’t an emergency, however important.
See also Emergency Leave
“Reasonable” is shorter than people assume
This is where most guidance goes soft, and where the law is specific.
The leading case, Qua v John Ford Morrison Solicitors, set out what the right does and doesn’t cover. It lets an employee deal with the crisis and arrange care — not provide that care personally once the immediate situation is handled. A parent whose child is sent home ill can collect them and sort out cover; the right doesn’t extend to staying home for the week.
On duration, the EAT was blunt: generally a few hours, at most a day or two.
And one point that inverts how most managers think about absence — the employer’s operational disruption is not part of the test. Reasonableness turns on the employee’s circumstances: the nature of the incident, how close the relationship is, whether anyone else could have dealt with it. How inconvenient the absence was doesn’t enter into it.
The same case confirmed the right can’t support a recurring arrangement. A standing one-day-a-week absence isn’t an emergency, whatever caused it originally.
Telling the employer is a condition
Section 57A(2) isn’t a courtesy — it’s part of the entitlement. The employee must tell the employer the reason for the absence as soon as reasonably practicable, and how long they expect to be away. Get that wrong and the automatic unfair dismissal protection attached to this right can fall away. One relief: where an absence runs more than a day, there’s no duty to report in daily.
It isn’t carer’s leave
These two get conflated constantly. They’re separate rights doing opposite jobs.
Time off for dependants covers the unplanned — emergencies, unpaid, no annual limit, but short.
Carer’s leave, a day-one right since April 2024, covers the planned — up to one week of unpaid leave a year for a dependant with a long-term need. The Employment Rights Act 2025 left it unpaid.
An employee managing a relative’s ongoing illness is usually in carer’s leave territory, not emergency territory — and if neither fits, it’s annual leave or an agreed unpaid arrangement.
Frequently asked questions
Is time off for dependants paid? Not by law. Many employers pay it, but the statutory right is unpaid.
How many days can you take? No set number and no limit on occasions, but each must be a genuine emergency, and case law points to hours or a day or two at a time.
Do you need a qualifying period? No. It applies from day one.
Can an employer refuse it? They can dispute whether the situation qualified or whether the time was reasonable, but not refuse a valid request — and penalising someone for taking it risks a detriment or automatic unfair dismissal claim.
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