Singapore parents welcoming a new baby now have access to considerably more paid time off together than they did just a few years ago. Shared Parental Leave, introduced under the Child Development Co-Savings (Amendment) Act 2024, has been rolled out in two phases, and from 1 April 2026 it reaches its full form, giving eligible parents up to ten weeks of paid leave to divide between them.
How Shared Parental Leave Works
Shared Parental Leave, often shortened to SPL, sits on top of the maternity and paternity leave that mothers and fathers already receive individually. Rather than being fixed to one parent, SPL is designed as a shared pool that can be divided between both parents in whatever way suits their family circumstances, subject to certain rules.
By default, the leave is split evenly between both parents, but parents are able to reallocate the leave between themselves if they prefer a different arrangement, for example if one parent’s job makes it harder to take extended time off while the other’s employer is more flexible. This differs from the earlier system, where mothers could only share up to four weeks of their own maternity leave with fathers, effectively treating the leave as belonging primarily to the mother with fathers getting a portion of it.
The Two-Phase Rollout
The scheme was introduced in phases to give employers time to adjust. From 1 April 2025, parents of children born from that date became eligible for six weeks of Shared Parental Leave, split between them. From 1 April 2026, this increased to ten weeks for parents of children born on or after that date, which is the full and final form of the scheme as currently legislated.
This means the exact entitlement a family receives depends on when their child was born. A child born in, say, February 2025, would not have qualified for the new scheme at all, since it only applies to children born from 1 April 2025 onwards. A child born in June 2025 would fall under the six-week phase, while a child born in May 2026 would fall under the full ten-week phase. This staggered approach is common when governments introduce significant new entitlements, allowing time for administrative and payroll systems to catch up.
How to Apply and Get Paid
Employers are required to pay an employee’s salary during their period of Shared Parental Leave, and can then seek reimbursement from the government, subject to a cap of 2,500 dollars per week, which works out to roughly 10,000 dollars per month. Employers submit their reimbursement claims through the Government-Paid Leave Portal, and are expected to do so within three months of the employee’s last day of Shared Parental Leave.
From a family’s perspective, this means Shared Parental Leave should feel similar to taking any other form of paid leave, with the employer continuing to pay salary as normal rather than the employee needing to apply for a separate government payment directly. Any changes to how the leave is split between parents generally need to be finalised early, since the rules require agreement on the sharing arrangement to be made within four weeks of the child’s birth, with any further changes after that point needing the employer’s agreement.
Eligibility Rules
To qualify for Shared Parental Leave, a child generally needs to be a Singapore citizen at birth, or become one within twelve months of being born. The parents also need to meet the general eligibility criteria for Government-Paid Maternity Leave or Government-Paid Paternity Leave respectively, since Shared Parental Leave is built as an extension of those existing schemes rather than a completely standalone entitlement.
Importantly, taking Shared Parental Leave does not affect the security of an employee’s job in a way that would allow an employer to use it as grounds for dismissal. However, the government has clarified that this does not mean an employee on Shared Parental Leave becomes entirely immune from performance related decisions unrelated to taking the leave, since employers retain the ability to make legitimate business decisions, including dismissals for poor performance, that are unconnected to the fact that leave was taken.
Why Singapore Introduced This Scheme
Shared Parental Leave is part of a wider set of measures under Singapore’s Marriage and Parenthood Package, aimed at supporting Singaporeans who want to have children while also continuing their careers. Policymakers have been explicit that encouraging fathers to take a more active caregiving role in a child’s earliest months is not just about family wellbeing, but also about supporting mothers to return to and stay in the workforce, since research and feedback gathered by the government suggested that an uneven division of early caregiving responsibilities was one factor discouraging some women from having children or returning to work quickly after childbirth.
By making the leave shared and flexible, rather than automatically defaulting to the mother taking almost all of the time off, the scheme is designed to normalise a more even split of early parenting responsibilities between both parents, which is a marked shift from how parental leave in Singapore was structured even a decade ago.
What Employers Need to Prepare For
For employers, the rollout of Shared Parental Leave means updating HR policies, payroll systems, and employee handbooks to reflect the new entitlements, as well as training HR teams and people managers to handle enquiries and plan around potential absences. Because the scheme now involves a meaningfully larger amount of leave than before, workforce planning has become more important, particularly for smaller teams where a key employee taking an extended period of leave can have a real operational impact.
Many companies have used the rollout of Shared Parental Leave as an opportunity to review their broader family-friendly policies, recognising that offering a smooth, well-supported leave experience can be a meaningful factor in attracting and retaining staff in a competitive labour market, beyond simply meeting the statutory minimum.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can both parents take Shared Parental Leave at the same time, or must it be taken one after the other?
The scheme is generally designed with flexibility in mind, and depending on how the leave has been allocated between the parents, it can potentially be taken concurrently or at different times, though the specific arrangement needs to be agreed and reflected in how the leave is claimed.
What happens if the mother is not working or is not eligible for Government-Paid Maternity Leave?
Because Shared Parental Leave is built as an extension of the existing maternity and paternity leave schemes, eligibility generally depends on the relevant parent meeting the underlying scheme’s requirements, so a family in this situation should check the specific eligibility conditions rather than assuming SPL automatically applies.
Does Shared Parental Leave apply to adoptive parents as well as biological parents?
Singapore’s broader suite of parental leave schemes has historically included provisions for adoptive parents, though the specific eligibility rules and entitlements for Shared Parental Leave in the context of adoption can differ from those for biological parents, so adoptive families should check the current rules for their situation.
Can Shared Parental Leave be taken in smaller blocks rather than all at once?
Government-paid leave schemes in Singapore have generally allowed some flexibility in how leave is scheduled, subject to employer agreement, though the exact flexibility for taking Shared Parental Leave in non-continuous blocks depends on the specific administrative rules in place at the time it is taken.
What if my child was born just before the 1 April 2026 cutoff for the full ten-week scheme?
Eligibility for the ten-week entitlement depends on the child’s date of birth falling on or after 1 April 2026. A child born shortly before that date would generally fall under the earlier six-week phase instead, since the increase is not applied retroactively to births that already occurred under the previous phase, so parents expecting a child around that date may want to confirm exactly which phase applies to them.
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