Giving approval to share Parental Leave Pay

You can share Parental Leave pay with your partner or the other parent if you’re one of the following:

• the birth mother
• first adoptive parent to claim Parental Leave Pay
• first gaining parent to claim Parental Leave Pay.

To do this, you must meet the Parental Leave Pay work test.

You can also share if you’re the first adoptive parent or first gaining parent to claim Parental Leave Pay. You can share with your partner or the other adoptive parent or gaining parent.

You can change your mind and remove approval or change the number of days shared with your partner or the other parent, as long as the days haven’t already been taken.

Your partner or the other parent can choose which dates they want to claim, up to the maximum amount you have shared.

If you don’t give approval to share Parental Leave Pay with the other parent, they won’t get Parental Leave Pay. We’ll tell them you haven’t given approval to share.

Step 1

You must have a Centrelink Customer Reference Number (CRN). When your partner or the other parent starts their claim, they’ll be asked to give us information about you. This is so we can ask you if you give them approval to share Parental Leave Pay and the number of days they can take. We'll do this using your Centrelink online account.

You’ll need your Customer Reference Number (CRN) and you must have linked your Centrelink online account to myGov. If you don’t already have a Centrelink online account, you’ll need to create one.

Step 2

Your partner can’t submit their claim until you tell us if you do or don’t give your approval to share.

If you haven’t given us your work test details already, you’ll need to give us this information.

Your partner or the other parent claiming Parental Leave Pay will be asked to provide all the following, your:

• CRN
• name
• date of birth
• relationship to the child
• address
• contact number.

You don’t have to give your CRN to your partner or the other parent, but it will help us find your online account.

Step 3

When we find your online account, we’ll create an online task for you to complete in your Centrelink online account. We’ll also send you a message in your myGov account to let you know the task is there.

Follow these steps:

1. Access your Centrelink online account through myGov.
2. Select the task Request to share Parental Leave Pay.
3. Complete all questions.
4. Click Submit.

When you’ve provided all the required information and submitted the task, we’ll notify the other parent that they can submit their claim for Parental Leave Pay. They can’t submit their claim until you’ve completed the task.

If we can’t find your Centrelink online account

If we can’t find your online account, you need to complete the Parental Leave Pay verification task. This will help us find your online account.

We’ll give the other parent some information in their claim about what you need to do. They can print this information to give to you. It will include the claim number for the other parent’s claim, and a temporary access code.

In your Centrelink online account through myGov, follow these steps:

1. Select Parental Leave Pay Verification.
2. Enter the claim number and temporary access code given to you by the other parent, then select Login.
3. Complete all questions.
4. Click Confirm.

Make sure you enter your details exactly as recorded in your Centrelink online account.

We’ll use the information you give us to find your Centrelink online account.

If you want to change how you share Parental Leave Pay, read more how to change your shared days.