Parental Leave in Europe 2026: All 27 EU Countries Compared

Parental leave in Europe ranges from about 58 weeks of maternity leave in Bulgaria to 14 weeks in Germany, and from 19 fully paid weeks for each parent in Spain to no separate paternity leave in Germany. The EU sets minimums for maternity, paternity and parental leave, but each of the 27 member states decides how long the leave lasts, who pays for it and how much of the salary it replaces.

This guide compares maternity, paternity and parental leave in all 27 EU countries using the European Parliament’s February 2026 overview, updated with the reforms that took effect since (including France’s new birth leave from 1 July 2026). It also shows, with TalentUp data from 2026 job ads, how rarely employers advertise anything above the statutory minimum, and how HR can design one parental leave policy for a team spread across several countries.

EU Minimum Rules: What Every Country Must Offer

Three EU directives set the minimum standards that every member state must meet. National laws can go further, and most do in at least one type of leave.

Member states had to transpose the Work-Life Balance Directive by 2 August 2022, with extra time until 2 August 2024 for part of the payment for parental leave. The right to paternity leave cannot depend on length of service, although payment can require up to 6 months of prior employment. Germany is a special case: according to the European Commission it meets the Directive’s exemption conditions because its parental leave and parental allowance already go further, so it has no separate paternity leave.

Maternity and Paternity Leave in All 27 EU Countries

The table uses the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) overview, which reflects the situation as known on 15 February 2026 and converts every national rule into rounded weeks. Maternity weeks include the period before and after birth; Spain is shown with the July 2025 reform. Pay ceilings are not included, and they matter: in many countries “100%” only applies up to a monthly cap.

¹ Finland, Portugal and Sweden organise most of the leave as gender-neutral parental leave, so maternity and paternity weeks understate what parents actually get (see the next section). ² Germany: no separate paternity leave; fathers use Elternzeit and Elterngeld partner months instead. ³ Spain: 6 mandatory weeks after the birth, 11 flexible weeks until the child turns one and 2 weeks usable until age 8; 32 weeks for single-parent families (Royal Decree-Law 9/2025).

Bulgaria has the longest maternity leave in the EU, followed by Ireland (where 16 of the 42 weeks are unpaid), Slovakia, Croatia and Czechia. At the other end, Germany, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden provide around 14 weeks of maternity-specific leave, but Denmark, Estonia and Sweden add long shared parental leave on top. For fathers and second parents, 16 of the 27 countries stop at about 2 weeks, the EU minimum.

What Changed in 2025 and 2026

• Spain (29 July 2025): childbirth and childcare leave rose from 17 to 19 weeks per parent, paid at 100% by Social Security, and to 32 weeks for single parents.
• Croatia (1 March 2025): paternity leave doubled from 10 to 20 working days (30 for twins or multiple births).
• Poland (19 March 2025): up to 15 extra weeks of maternity leave for parents of premature babies or babies needing long hospital stays.
• Italy (2025): parents of children born from 1 January 2025 can get up to 3 months of parental leave at 80% instead of 30%.
• France (1 July 2026): a new supplementary birth leave of 1 to 2 months per parent for children born or adopted from 1 January 2026, paid at 70% then 60% (details below).

Parental Leave in the Largest EU Markets

Parental leave starts after maternity or paternity leave and is where countries differ most: some pay it well, some pay a flat rate and some do not pay it at all. The table covers the largest EU labour markets and the Nordic and Iberian models, with the rules from official sources.

The pattern is clear. The Nordic countries and Germany pay long parental leave at a meaningful share of salary, while Spain, France and Italy have recently added well-paid weeks on top of systems that used to be unpaid or paid at a low flat rate. The Netherlands pays 9 of its 26 weeks. Where statutory pay is low or capped, employer top-ups are what make the leave affordable for higher earners.

How Often Employers Advertise Enhanced Parental Leave

To see whether European employers use parental leave to compete for talent, TalentUp analysed a random sample of about 21,500 job ads published between January and September 2026 in 11 EU countries. We looked for any mention of parental, maternity or paternity leave as a benefit, and separately for ads that promise more than the statutory minimum (enhanced, extra or fully paid leave, top-ups to full salary, or a specific number of paid weeks).

Source: TalentUp job ads database, January–September 2026, about 21,500 ads in 11 EU countries. See methodology below.

Ireland stands out for a simple reason: statutory maternity and paternity benefit is a flat €299 a week, so a promise of “enhanced maternity pay” or “26 weeks’ top-up to full base pay” is worth a lot to candidates, and many multinationals hiring in Dublin advertise it. In Sweden and Denmark, ads often name a specific, well-known top-up: föräldrapenningtillägg or “supplementary compensation for parental leave” in Sweden, fuld løn under barsel (full pay during leave) in Denmark. In Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, fewer than 1 in 80 ads mention parental leave at all, and almost none promise more than the law.

The takeaway for employers: an enhanced parental leave policy is rarely advertised, so stating it clearly in job ads is a cheap way to stand out, especially for mid-career candidates who are comparing total packages, not just salary. For the full picture of what candidates weigh, see our guide on why employee benefits matter as much as salary.

What Employers Commonly Top Up

Because statutory pay in most EU countries comes from social security, employer enhancements usually fill the gap between the state benefit and full salary, or extend the paid period. The job ads in our sample show five recurring patterns:

1. Top-up to full salary during maternity leave. The most common enhancement where statutory pay is a flat rate or capped (Ireland, Belgium, Denmark above the weekly cap, France and Germany above the ceilings). Ads often specify the duration, for example “26 weeks’ top-up to full base pay”.
2. Fully paid leave for the second parent. Typically 4 to 12 weeks, well above the 2-week EU minimum that most countries apply.
3. A global “primary/secondary carer” policy. Multinationals increasingly offer the same number of fully paid weeks in every country, such as 16 to 24 weeks for the primary carer and 6 to 12 weeks for the other parent, regardless of gender.
4. Top-up of paid parental leave. In the Netherlands, some employers pay the 9 weeks of parental leave at 100% instead of 70%; in Sweden, föräldrapenningtillägg adds an employer-paid supplement to the state parental benefit.
5. Return-to-work support. Phased returns, part-time options, continued pension contributions during leave and programmes for employees coming back from parental leave.

Parental leave sits alongside other leave entitlements in the total package; our guides on paid leave and vacation days in Europe cover the rest.

How to Design a Parental Leave Policy for Multi-Country Teams

A single policy that ignores local law will be non-compliant somewhere; 27 separate policies are impossible to manage. Most international employers use a “global floor, local top-up” model:

1. Map the statutory baseline in every country where you employ people: weeks, pay rate, pay ceiling and who pays (state or employer). Use the tables above as a starting point and check national sources before you commit.
2. Set a global minimum that every employee gets regardless of location, for example a number of fully paid weeks for each parent. Where the law already gives more (Bulgaria’s 58 weeks, Spain’s 19 weeks per parent), local law prevails.
3. Define the top-up as a salary difference, not extra weeks only: pay the gap between the state benefit and the employee’s salary for a set period, and state whether it applies above the social security ceiling.
4. Make it gender-neutral and include adoption and surrogacy, so that the policy rewards fathers and second parents for taking leave, not only mothers.
5. Protect pay progression: include people on leave in the annual salary review and bonus cycle, so that a career break does not freeze their pay.
6. Budget and model the cost per country using real salaries; salary benchmarking for international companies helps you estimate what full pay means in each market.
7. Communicate it: publish the policy internally, mention it in job ads and in offers, and train managers to plan cover.

Costs, Retention and the Gender Pay Gap: What the Evidence Says

The cost of leave itself is mostly public. In most EU countries the state pays maternity, paternity and parental benefits, so the employer’s direct cost is the top-up and the cost of cover. The less visible cost is the career penalty: research on Danish administrative data finds that the arrival of children creates a long-run gender gap in earnings of around 20%, driven by hours worked, participation and wage rates (Kleven, Landais and Søgaard, 2019).

Longer leave alone does not close that gap. A study of more than 60 years of Austrian family policy reforms found that the large expansions of parental leave and childcare had “virtually no impact on gender convergence” in earnings (Kleven et al., 2024). What matters for employers is how leave is shared and what happens to pay after the return, which is why policies that give fathers paid, non-transferable leave and protect salary progression are more effective than simply adding weeks for mothers.

This connects directly to pay equity. The EU’s unadjusted gender pay gap was 11.1% in 2024 (Eurostat). Under the EU Pay Transparency Directive, whose transposition deadline was 7 June 2026, employers will report gender pay gaps as national laws apply: annually from June 2027 for 250+ workers, every three years for 150–249 workers from 2027 and for 100–149 workers from 2031. An unexplained gap of 5% or more that is not corrected within six months triggers a joint pay assessment. Tracking the pay of employees who return from parental leave, by gender, is one of the most useful checks in a pay equity audit. Our EU Pay Transparency Directive guide and pay transparency hub explain the obligations in each country.

To make sure the salaries of returning parents stay in line with the market, compare them with current data: TalentUp’s European Salary Benchmark Report and methodology show how we build country-level benchmarks from millions of job ads.

Sources

• TalentUp job ads database, January–September 2026: random sample of about 21,500 ads with full descriptions in 11 EU countries (see methodology above).
• European Parliamentary Research Service, Maternity and paternity leave in the EU (April 2026, situation as of 15 February 2026)
• Directive (EU) 2019/1158 on work-life balance for parents and carers, EUR-Lex
• Council Directive 92/85/EEC on pregnant workers, EUR-Lex
• Service-Public.fr, Entrée en vigueur du congé supplémentaire de naissance (June 2026)
• German Federal Family Ministry, Elterngeld
• INPS, congedo parentale: months paid at 80% (2026)
• Rijksoverheid, Wanneer heb ik recht op betaald ouderschapsverlof?
• Försäkringskassan, Föräldrapenning
• Eurostat, Gender pay gap statistics
• Kleven, Landais, Posch, Steinhauer and Zweimüller, Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2024
• Kleven, Landais and Søgaard, Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2019
• Institut Jacques Delors, Parents’ leaves in the EU (2022)