Unmarried couple having a baby, or one of you stops working: keeping the money fair

What changes for an unmarried couple having a baby?

If you’re an unmarried couple having a baby, the money usually changes before anything else does. One of you takes leave on lower pay, or stops working for a while, and the bills stay the same. The same is true if one of you goes back to study, cares for a relative or changes career. This guide covers England and Wales.

The key rule is short. Citizens Advice says that if you’re not married, neither partner has a legal duty to support the other financially. Married partners do have that duty. Children are different: both parents are responsible for supporting their children, married or not.

So the law leaves it to you. Nothing decides how you share the mortgage or rent, the bills and the food while one of you earns less. That can feel awkward to talk about, but it’s also a chance: you can agree something you both think is fair, before money gets tight.

A few rules do still treat you as a couple:

• Joint mortgage or tenancy. If you’re both named, you may each be responsible for the whole amount, not just your half.
• Universal Credit. If you live together, you must make a joint claim, and your partner’s income and savings count as well as your own.
• High Income Child Benefit Charge. It applies to partners who live together as if married, not only to married couples.

And some help for married couples isn’t open to you. You can’t use Marriage Allowance, which lets a spouse or civil partner transfer £1,260 of their Personal Allowance to the other, worth up to £252 a year in tax when we checked on 1 October 2026.

What money do you get on parental leave?

Statutory pay is the same whether you’re married or not. These are the GOV.UK rates for 2026 to 2027, checked on 1 October 2026. Many employers pay more, so check your own contract.

Pay	How long	How much
Maternity Pay	39 weeks	90% of pay for 6 weeks, then £194.32 a week or 90%, if lower
Paternity Pay	Up to 2 weeks	£194.32 a week or 90%, if lower
Shared Parental Pay	Up to 37 weeks, shared	£194.32 a week or 90%, if lower
Maternity Allowance	Up to 39 weeks	Up to £194.32 a week

Paternity leave is for the husband or partner of the mother, including same-sex partners, so an unmarried partner can take it if they meet the work and pay conditions. It’s up to 2 weeks, taken in one go or as two separate weeks, and must end within 52 weeks of the birth.

Shared Parental Leave lets you share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you, if you both meet the conditions. You don’t have to be married: GOV.UK’s guidance for employers says the mother can share it with the child’s father, or with a partner who lives with her and the child in an enduring family relationship. It can change which of you earns less, and for how long.

Maternity Allowance is for someone who can’t get Statutory Maternity Pay, for example because they’re self-employed or recently stopped working.

The gap is what matters for your budget. After the first 6 weeks, someone who usually earns £2,500 a month before tax drops to about £842 a month before tax (£194.32 a week), unless their employer pays more.

What about Child Benefit, National Insurance and your pension?

Three things are easy to miss, and each one affects the partner who earns less most.

Claim Child Benefit in the right name. If you’re registered for Child Benefit for a child under 12, you get National Insurance credits automatically. These count towards your State Pension. So it usually makes sense for the parent who is at home, or earning less, to be the one who claims. When we checked GOV.UK on 1 October 2026, Child Benefit was £27.05 a week for the eldest or only child and £17.90 for each other child.

Check the High Income Child Benefit Charge. When we checked on 1 October 2026, the charge started when either of you had an adjusted net income over £60,000. Whoever has the higher income pays it, even if the other partner gets the Child Benefit. You pay back 1% for every £200 over £60,000, and all of it at over £80,000. If you’d pay it all back, GOV.UK says you can opt out of the payments and still get the National Insurance credits, so it’s still worth registering.

Watch the pension gap. Your employer carries on paying into your workplace pension during paid maternity leave, and during the first 26 weeks of maternity leave even if it’s unpaid. After that, it depends on your contract. If you stop working or cut your hours, less goes in and your pension grows more slowly. Advicenow says that, unlike married couples, you won’t be entitled to part of your partner’s State Pension, and that a couple where one works less to look after the family should think about how to make this fairer.

There’s also a pension question if one of you dies. Advicenow says some schemes don’t pay survivor’s benefits to an unmarried partner. Where a scheme does, you usually need to name your partner on its nomination or “expression of wishes” form.

How can you share the bills while one of you earns less?

There are three common ways. All of them can be fair. What matters is that you both choose it, rather than drifting into one.

1. Keep the same split. You carry on sharing the mortgage or rent and bills as you do now. It’s simple, and keeps your money separate. But if one of you has a much smaller income for a while, it can leave them with very little.
2. Adjust the split to what you earn. Each of you pays in proportion to your income at the time, then you switch back when pay goes back up. This tracks the change month by month, and is easy to recalculate. The rent split calculator does the sums for any shared monthly cost.
3. One of you covers more for a set time. The higher earner pays more for an agreed number of months, for example the length of the leave. Say whether it’s a loan. If it isn’t, write down that it doesn’t have to be paid back and doesn’t change who owns the home.

Some couples add a fourth idea: the partner who earns more pays into the other’s pension while they’re off, so the gap doesn’t grow. That’s something to look into with your pension provider or a financial adviser, not something we can advise on.

Whichever you choose, agree how long it lasts and when you’ll look at it again: when the leave ends, when nursery starts, or after a year.

Does paying less change who owns the home?

Usually not, if you’ve written your shares down.

If you bought as tenants in common and recorded your shares in a declaration of trust, those shares usually stay as written unless you both agree to change them. So one of you paying more of the mortgage for a while doesn’t quietly shift ownership. If you do want to change your shares, ask a solicitor how to record it before relying on it.

If you recorded nothing, it’s less clear. In joint names, the starting point is equal shares, and a court only departs from that if there’s evidence you both intended something different. A partner who owns nothing on paper has no automatic share at all. That’s why it helps to write down, at the time, what the extra payments mean. Our guide to what happens to the house if you split up covers the default rules.

How does this work with real numbers?

Alex and Jordan aren’t married. They bought a home as tenants in common, and recorded that each gets their deposit back first: £40,000 for Alex and £10,000 for Jordan. You can try those numbers in the deposit split calculator.

Their shared costs (mortgage, bills and food) are £1,200 a month, and they split them equally: £600 each. Alex takes home £3,000 a month and Jordan £2,000. Then they have a baby, and Jordan takes 9 months’ leave. To keep it simple, say Jordan’s take-home pay averages £1,000 a month over those 9 months.

Here’s what each would pay each month under the three options:

Alex and Jordan's £1,200 a month during Jordan's leave

Option	Alex pays	Jordan pays
Same split	£600	£600
Adjusted by income	£900	£300
Alex covers it all	£1,200	£0

And here’s what each has left each month for everything else:

Option	Alex has left	Jordan has left
Same split	£2,400	£400
Adjusted by income	£2,100	£700
Alex covers it all	£1,800	£1,000

How the sums work:

• Same split. Each pays £600. Over 9 months, that’s £5,400 each.
• Adjusted by income. During the leave they earn £4,000 between them, so Alex has 75% (£3,000) and Jordan 25% (£1,000). Alex pays 75% of £1,200, which is £900, and Jordan pays £300. Over 9 months, Alex pays £8,100 and Jordan £2,700.
• Alex covers it all. Alex pays £1,200 and Jordan nothing. Over 9 months, Alex pays £10,800, which is £5,400 more than usual.

All three add up to £1,200 a month, or £10,800 over the 9 months.

Each option is fair in a different way. The same split keeps things as they were, but leaves Jordan with £400 a month. Adjusting by income means each pays the same share of what they earn. Alex covering it all treats the leave as a time when they both have a child to look after and only one full pay.

They choose the highlighted row, and write down three things: the new split lasts until Jordan goes back to work; it’s not a loan; and it doesn’t change their shares in the home. If they sold later, Alex would still get £40,000 back first and Jordan £10,000, then they’d split what’s left as they recorded. Illustration only: real take-home pay on leave varies and this ignores tax changes and Child Benefit.

What if you split up, or one of you dies, after having a baby?

Planning for this isn’t expecting the worst. It just means the partner at home isn’t left guessing.

Money for the child. Both parents must support their children. If you separate, you can agree child maintenance between you, or use the Child Maintenance Service. Under Schedule 1 to the Children Act 1989, a parent can also ask a court for orders against the other parent for the child’s benefit, such as regular payments, lump sums or a home. Citizens Advice says a court might delay selling the home until the youngest child is 18.

No money for you. Unlike on a divorce, the parent who stepped back from work can’t claim maintenance for themselves. So a career break is the time when writing down how you’ll share things matters most.

Parental responsibility. The birth mother always has it. A father who isn’t married to her gets it by jointly registering the birth with her, or he can apply for it. There are different rules for same-sex couples.

Wills and guardians. Without a will, Citizens Advice says an unmarried partner doesn’t automatically inherit anything, unless you owned property jointly. GOV.UK says a will should set out who looks after any children under 18, as well as who gets what. If you share a home with someone you’re not married to, GOV.UK suggests getting advice on your will. See our guide to unmarried couples’ rights for what happens if one of you dies.

What should you do next?

1. Talk it through before the change. Agree which option you’ll use for the bills, for how long, and when you’ll look at it again. The free 10-minute conversation includes a question on exactly this, and your answers stay on your device.
2. Claim Child Benefit in the name of the parent at home or earning less, even if you’ll opt out of the payments.
3. Check your pay and pension. Look at your employer’s maternity, paternity and shared parental policies, and what happens to pension payments while you’re off.
4. Register the birth together so both parents have parental responsibility.
5. Write it down. A couples agreement (also called a cohabitation agreement or a house buying agreement) can record your shares in the home and what happens if one of you earns less. Courts can take it into account, especially if it’s fair and you were both open about your money. See what a couples agreement covers and how your agreement counts.
6. Make wills naming guardians for your child, and name each other on your pension nomination forms.
7. Get advice if one of you is giving up work for a long time, the home is in one name, or you’re separating now. A solicitor, a financial adviser or a family mediator can help.