Redundancy Pay - Entitlement

You will receive Redundancy payment only if you are an employee working with a contract of employment. Contracts of employment can be spoken or written and last for a fixed term or for any length of time. In law, employees generally have a contract as soon as you begin work and by turning up for work you accept the conditions offered by the employer.

• Usually Self-employed people and members of a partnership do not qualify
• Directors and other office holders may be employees if they work under a contract of employment.

Specific categories of people do not have a right to redundancy payments.

• Members of the Armed Forces
• Staff in the Houses of Commons and Lords
• An Apprentices whose contract ends at the end of the apprenticeship
• An employee at the end of a fixed term contract, lasting at least two years, where a written waiver to redundancy payment has been signed
• A domestic servant who  works in a private home and who is a member of the employer's immediate close family
• Share fishermen paid only by a share in the proceeds of the catch
• Crown servants or employees in a public office
• Employees of the Government of an overseas territory