The short answer is no. Your employer does not have to pay you a cent while you are on maternity leave.
The statutory entitlement has always been to unpaid, protected leave. Income replacement comes from UIF, and it does not replace all of it.
There is also a second answer, which is newer and which most South African websites have not caught up with: maternity leave is no longer a separate legal category at all.
What changed in October 2025
On 3 October 2025 the Constitutional Court handed down Van Wyk and Others v Minister of Employment and Labour. It struck down the sections of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act that created maternity leave, parental leave, adoption leave and commissioning leave as separate things, and collapsed them into one: parental leave.
What that means for a pregnant employee:
If you are the only employed parent, or a single parent, you are entitled to four consecutive months. In practice this looks the same as the old maternity leave.
If your partner is also employed, you no longer hold a standalone four month right. The two of you now share a pool of four months and ten days, and you decide the split between you. If you cannot agree, it is divided as equally as possible.
You do keep preference for the time needed to prepare for and recover from the birth, and you still may not return to work within six weeks of giving birth unless a doctor or midwife certifies you fit. But those six weeks come out of the shared pool. They are not additional.
The full picture is in our guide to parental leave in South Africa.
So who pays you?
Three possible sources, and only one of them is guaranteed.
Your employer. Not required to pay you anything. Many do, as a contractual benefit, and some pay full salary for four months. That generosity comes from your contract or your company policy, never from the BCEA.
UIF. Pays a maternity benefit. This is the guaranteed part, if you have been contributing.
Yourself. Whatever the first two do not cover.
What UIF actually pays
The UIF maternity benefit replaces 66 percent of your earnings, but only earnings up to the ceiling of R17 712 a month. Earn more than that and your benefit is calculated on R17 712 regardless of your real salary.
That puts a hard cap on the daily benefit of roughly R384, and you can claim for up to 121 days.
So the most any woman in South Africa can receive from UIF for maternity is about R46 500, spread across four months, no matter what she earns.
If you earn R12 000 a month, you will receive roughly R261 a day and the gap is manageable. If you earn R45 000 a month, UIF replaces well under a fifth of your income. Work out your own figure with the calculator on our parental leave page.
Read how to claim UIF for the process, and check your UI-19 form carefully. If the claim has already been refused, see UIF claim rejected.
Your employer’s paid policy may be about to change
Here is something worth knowing if you are pregnant and your employer offers four months on full pay.
Since the Constitutional Court held that birth mothers are no longer a distinct category of parent, a policy that pays only birth mothers now carries a real risk of an unfair discrimination claim under the Employment Equity Act. Fathers, adoptive parents and commissioning parents can now point at that policy and ask why they get nothing.
Employers have two lawful ways to respond. They can level up, extending the paid benefit to all parents. Or they can level down, removing the paid benefit entirely, following a fair process.
Some are levelling up. Some are quietly reviewing. If you are planning a pregnancy around a generous employer benefit, it is worth finding out which way yours is leaning, because that benefit is contractual, not statutory, and contractual benefits can be changed.
If your employer pays nothing
That is lawful. Plan for it.
- Claim UIF. It is not much, but it is yours, and you have contributed to it.
- Ask about a top up. Some employers pay the difference between the UIF benefit and your salary for part of the period, even without a formal policy.
- Use accrued annual leave to bridge part of the gap. Annual leave is paid at full remuneration. It is a blunt tool and you will start back at work with nothing in the bank, but it converts unpaid weeks into paid ones.
- Do not resign. You are protected. Dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy is automatically unfair.
Frequently asked questions
Is maternity leave paid in South Africa? Not by your employer, unless your contract or company policy says so. The statutory entitlement is unpaid, protected leave. UIF pays a partial benefit.
How much does UIF pay for maternity leave? 66 percent of your earnings, calculated on a maximum of R17 712 a month. That is a maximum of roughly R384 a day, for up to 121 days, or about R46 500 in total.
How many months maternity leave in South Africa? Four consecutive months if you are the only employed parent. If your partner is also employed, you share a pool of four months and ten days and split it between you.
Can my employer refuse maternity leave? No. The statutory entitlement stands, provided you give proper written notice, which is at least four weeks before your leave starts.
Can I be dismissed while pregnant or on maternity leave? No. Dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy or any reason related to it is automatically unfair.
Do I have to take all four months? No, but you may not return to work within six weeks of giving birth unless a medical practitioner or midwife certifies that you are fit to do so.
Sources
- Constitutional Court of South Africa, Van Wyk and Others v Minister of Employment and Labour
- SAFLII, Van Wyk and Others v Minister of Employment and Labour (CCT 308/23) [2025] ZACC 20
This is general information, not legal advice.
