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Section 80J: Carer's leave

Employment Rights Act 1996 · 1996 c. 18View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 8B: Carer's leave

The Secretary of State must make regulations entitling an employee to be absent from work on leave under this section in order to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need.

For the purposes of subsection (1)—

a person is a dependant of an employee if they—
are a spouse, civil partner, child or parent of the employee,
live in the same household as the employee, otherwise than by reason of being the employee's boarder, employee, lodger or tenant, or
reasonably rely on the employee to provide or arrange care, and
a dependant of an employee has a long-term care need if—
they have an illness or injury (whether physical or mental) that requires, or is likely to require, care for more than three months,
they have a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, or
they require care for a reason connected with their old age.

The regulations must include provision for determining—

the extent of an employee's entitlement to leave under this section;
when leave under this section may be taken.

Provision under subsection (3)(a) must secure that where an employee is entitled to leave under this section the employee is entitled to at least a week's leave during any period of 12 months.

The regulations may make provision about how leave under this section is to be taken (including by providing for it to be taken non-continuously).

The regulations may provide that particular activities are, or are not, to be treated as providing or arranging care for the purposes of this Part.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.