How much National Insurance will you have to pay?
The rules are quite complicated. If you earn less than £94.01 a week or £408 a month you won’t have to pay any National Insurance contributions because you haven’t reached the ‘earnings threshold’. However, if you earn between £82 and £94. a week your National Insurance contributions record will be credited with some contributions as if you had paid them, even though you haven’t. This is because you are earning between ‘the Lower Earnings Limit’ and the ‘earnings threshold’.
The 11% rate operates on earnings up to and including £630 a week or £2,730 a month. Once you earn more than that you’ll have reached what is known as the ‘Upper Earnings Limit’ when the 11% stops and you start to pay 1% on your earnings above the Upper Earnings Limit.
An example shows you how it works in practice.
Another fact you might like to know is that while you are in full time education up to and including the age of 18 your National Insurance record will be credited with contributions even though you may not have paid any contributions yourself. Although you will be credited, this will not stop you having to pay contributions if you are aged 16 or over and you do some sort of work in your spare time in which you earn above £94 a week.
