Maternity leave in the Philippines is governed by Republic Act No. 11210, the 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law, not by the old Labor Code 60-day live-birth period. Payroll has two jobs: keep the employee on the correct leave dates, and apply SSS maternity benefit plus any employer salary differential so the paid period is actually full pay for qualified workers. TimeBoxHR is designed to support a maternity leave type, approved dates that flow into DTR and payroll, and configurable payroll rules so those days are not taken from vacation or sick leave credits.
Last reviewed: September 2026.
Government rules and contribution schedules may change. This article is provided for general information and should be verified against the latest official government issuance before payroll processing.
This article summarizes well-established RA 11210 and DOLE handbook points for HR and payroll operations. SSS contribution tests, exemption criteria for salary differential, and handbook notes can change. Use current SSS and DOLE issuances for a live claim.
Duration under RA 11210
The current statutory durations for qualified female employees are:
| Event | Paid days | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Live birth (normal or cesarean) | 105 | Full pay for the statutory paid period |
| Live birth, qualified solo parent | 120 | 105 plus 15 additional paid days |
| Miscarriage or emergency termination of pregnancy | 60 | Full pay |
| Optional extension | 30 | Without pay, with due notice |
Civil status, employment status, and the legitimacy of the child are not the coverage filters the handbook uses for this benefit. Frequency is not a cap: the leave is granted for every instance of pregnancy, miscarriage, or emergency termination that qualifies.
The 105 days may be a combination of prenatal and postnatal leave, provided the total does not exceed 105 and compulsory postnatal leave is not less than 60 days. That split belongs in the leave dates you approve, not in a VL calendar.
Do not encode 60 days for a live birth because an old file still says so. Sixty days is the current figure for miscarriage or emergency termination, not for a live birth.
Notice, contributions, and availment
The handbook restates that a female employee is entitled when she has the required SSS monthly contributions in the 12-month period immediately preceding the semester of childbirth, miscarriage, or emergency termination, and when she has notified her employer about her pregnancy and the probable date of childbirth.
HR should collect notice early enough to plan coverage. “Semester,” contribution counting, and SSS filing steps are agency rules. Follow the current instructions on sss.gov.ph rather than a memorized count from a prior claim.
The optional 30-day unpaid extension requires due notice. Put the unpaid dates on the DTR as maternity extension without pay so payroll does not continue full basic pay by inertia.
Nothing in RA 11210 should diminish more beneficial maternity benefits already enjoyed under a CBA or present laws. If the company already pays beyond the statutory structure, keep the more beneficial rule and still record dates accurately.
Allocation of up to seven days
A female worker entitled to maternity leave may, at her option, allocate up to seven days of the benefit to the child’s father, whether or not he is married to her. The Act also provides for allocation to an alternate caregiver in stated cases of death, absence, or incapacity of the father, with written notice to the employers involved.
Those allocated days are over and above paternity leave under RA 8187. A married father may therefore have RA 8187 paternity leave and allocated maternity days as separate entitlements when both apply.
Operationally, you need two employee records if the father or caregiver works for you, or a coordination note if he works elsewhere. Do not deduct the seven days from the mother’s 105 without recording who received them. Do not call allocated days “paternity” in the DTR if you also need RA 8187 paternity on the same person.
SSS maternity benefit and the employer salary differential
SSS maternity benefit is computed and paid under SSS rules. The employer, under the handbook restatement of RA 11210, pays the salary differential between the worker’s full salary during maternity leave and the actual cash benefit from SSS, subject to current DOLE guidelines and any lawful exemption.
That is why maternity payroll is not “mark 105 days VL at daily rate.” Typical components to keep visible are:
- SSS maternity benefit (amount and period as SSS determines)
- Employer salary differential
- Unpaid 30-day extension, if taken
- Allocated days paid to the father or alternate caregiver
- Ordinary company pay stopping and restarting on the correct dates
DOLE Department Advisory No. 1, Series of 2019, is the handbook’s pointer for salary-differential computation and exemption criteria. Read the current text before you decide that a small employer is exempt. Do not skip the differential because “SSS already paid something.”
The handbook also states that the salary differential shall be included as part of basic salary for 13th-month computation of the rank-and-file employee. Confirm that treatment in the current handbook when you build the annual 13th-month base.
How to compute leave pay explains why maternity should not share a conversion rule with unused SIL. How to compute payroll is the wider cutoff picture: contributions, withholding, and earnings must still run for the periods the employee is paid.
What not to do
- Do not charge maternity to VL or SL
- Do not use 60 days for a live birth
- Do not ignore the 15 solo-parent days when qualification is documented
- Do not treat the 30-day extension as paid because “we always round up”
- Do not refuse allocation because the parents are unmarried
- Do not treat allocated days as a replacement for RA 8187 paternity
- Do not omit salary differential without a current exemption analysis
- Do not collect more medical detail than notice and the documents SSS or policy require
Overlap with other women’s leave
Special leave for women under RA 9710 is for surgery caused by gynecological disorders. The handbook discusses overlap: if both benefits apply to the same days, the employee receives full pay once for those days, and may receive the difference when the benefits are not the same amount. Confirm the current handbook paragraph before you stack two full-pay streams on one calendar day.
Company SL is the wrong type for childbirth. Keep SL for ordinary illness under company SL policy.
Prenatal days, postnatal days, and coverage planning
Because up to 45 of the 105 days may be used before birth if postnatal leave stays at least 60 days, the DTR will often show maternity before the delivery date. Operations should plan replacement coverage from the approved prenatal start, not from the hospital text message.
If delivery is earlier than expected, shorten unused prenatal days and protect the compulsory postnatal minimum. If delivery is later, unused prenatal days do not automatically become extra paid days beyond 105. Amend the date range. Do not leave two overlapping maternity requests on the same employee.
Probationary and project-based female employees are not outside RA 11210 merely because of status. Contribution and notice conditions still apply. Do not tell a probationary worker that maternity “starts after regularization.”
Contributions, withholding, and the paid period
A paid maternity period is still a compensation period for many statutory-deduction questions. Confirm current SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and withholding treatment for the months the employee is on paid maternity and for any unpaid extension. Do not copy last year’s spreadsheet assumption.
If the company advances the full salary and later records the SSS benefit as a receivable or a contra line, keep both sides visible. A net-zero month with no register detail is how remittance and 13th-month bases go missing.
The employee leave overview is the map back to the rest of the cluster.
Records and privacy
Keep the pregnancy notice, expected date, SSS claim references you are allowed to store, approved leave dates (prenatal, postnatal, extension), solo-parent documentation if the extra 15 days are claimed, allocation notices, and the payroll register lines for SSS benefit and differential.
A maternity file is not a public story. Limit access to people who schedule work or compute pay. Store attachments under the company privacy policy.
If the father or alternate caregiver is also on your payroll, keep allocation papers on his record as well, with the same limited access.
How TimeBoxHR Handles This
TimeBoxHR is designed to support a maternity leave type, entitlement recording for the statutory durations you configure, leave requests and approval, and employee-portal application and status tracking. Approved maternity dates are designed to flow into DTR and payroll. Configurable payroll rules can treat the paid maternity period, an unpaid extension, and ordinary workdays as different inputs. Holiday calendars remain in the same system so a holiday inside the maternity window is not encoded as if the employee worked it.
Simplify maternity leave administration with TimeBoxHR
Create maternity as its own type with the 105, 120, and 60-day patterns you need to select from, plus an unpaid extension type or reason. Do not attach maternity to the VL accrual batch. If the father is also on your payroll, record allocated days as the correct type on his record. Use manual adjustments only for corrections, not as the first way to create a 105-day absence.
TimeBoxHR does not compute SSS maternity benefit amounts by itself as a substitute for SSS. It is designed to support the leave dates and the payroll rules you configure after you have the SSS figures and the differential method from current official guidance.
Explore TimeBoxHR leave, DTR, and payroll features, or start a 30-day free trial to see maternity dates on the same cutoff as attendance.
