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Nominating a start date
You must nominate a start date for your Paid Parental Leave period in your claim. You’ll get your first payment after your nominated start date.
Your start date can’t be before your child’s date of birth or adoption.
You can nominate your child’s date of birth or adoption as the start date. To do this, you need to do both of the following within 28 days of the birth or adoption:
- submit your claim
- provide proof of birth or adoption.
If you don’t, you won’t be able to nominate their birth or adoption as the start date. Instead, your earliest start date can only be from the date you submit your claim and provide proof of birth or adoption. You can also nominate a later start date.
If coronavirus (COVID-19) affected your work, you may be able to use the extended work test. Then, you can nominate a start date as early as your child’s birth or adoption. You can do this even if you claim 28 days, or longer, after their birth or adoption.
However, if you nominate a start date in the past, we may have paid you too much. This can happen if, in the same period, you or your partner got either:
- Family Tax Benefit
- an income support payment, such as Parenting Payment.
If this happens you may owe us money which you’ll have to pay back.
The full Paid Parental Leave period is 12 weeks. To get this your start date must be within 40 weeks of your child’s birth or adoption.
If your start date isn’t within this timeframe, your Paid Parental Leave period will be less than the maximum.
You can take Parental Leave Pay before, during or after any paid or unpaid employer funded leave. This includes all of the following:
- maternity or parental leave
- annual leave
- long service leave.
Getting your first payment
You need to do both of the following before we can finalise your claim:
- provide proof of birth or adoption
- confirm that you’ve registered their birth with your state or territory government.
You’ll get your first payment after your nominated start date. It will include any arrears you’re entitled to.
If your employer is paying your payment to you
When we finalise your claim we’ll give them the funds. Once they get them, you’ll usually get paid on your next regular payday after your nominated start date.
It could take longer if your employer gets the funds after their payroll cut off. In these cases, you’ll get your payment on the following payday.
Your employer will also pay any Flexible Paid Parental Leave days you connected to your Paid Parental Leave period.
If we’re paying your payment directly to you
You’ll generally get your first payment 14 days after the start date if both of the following have happened:
- you’ve provided proof of birth
- your claim has been finalised.