UK National Insurance Calculator

About UK National Insurance Calculator

2026/27 National Insurance Rates

Type	Band	Rate
Employee (Class 1)	£12,570 - £50,270	8%
Employee (Class 1)	Above £50,270	2%
Employer (Class 1)	Above £5,000	15%
Self-employed (Class 4)	£12,570 - £50,270	6%
Self-employed (Class 4)	Above £50,270	2%
Self-employed (Class 2, voluntary)	Profits below £7,105 (Small Profits Threshold)	£3.65/week

The Primary Threshold, Upper Earnings Limit, and Personal Allowance have been frozen until April 2031 under the policy confirmed in the 2025 Autumn Budget (extended from April 2028). That fiscal drag means more workers gradually fall into the 8% (and eventually 2%) Class 1 bands each year without any headline rate change. HMRC published the confirmed 2026/27 rates and thresholds on gov.uk in April 2026 - no change to the headline 8%/2% employee rates or the £12,570/£50,270 thresholds, but the Class 2 voluntary rate rose to £3.65/week and Class 3 to £18.40/week from 6 April 2026.

How Employee NI Is Calculated

Class 1 Primary contributions are worked out per earnings period (weekly or monthly in PAYE) but annualise cleanly for salaried staff. The Primary Threshold is £242/week (£1,048/month, £12,570/year) and the Upper Earnings Limit is £967/week (£4,189/month, £50,270/year).

Worked example (£40,000 salary):

• Earnings in the 8% band: £40,000 - £12,570 = £27,430
• Employee NI: £27,430 x 8% = £2,194.40/year (£182.87/month)
• Employer NI: (£40,000 - £5,000) x 15% = £5,250/year

The employer pays more than double the employee's NI on the same salary. This is a hidden cost of employment that does not appear on your payslip but affects hiring decisions and total reward. Research from the Resolution Foundation estimated that the April 2025 employer NI rise (13.8% to 15%, plus the Secondary Threshold drop from £9,100 to £5,000) added about £900 per year to the cost of employing a median worker.

Worked example (£70,000 salary):

• 8% band: (£50,270 - £12,570) x 8% = £3,016.00
• 2% band: (£70,000 - £50,270) x 2% = £394.60
• Total employee NI: £3,410.60/year (£284.22/month)
• Employer NI: (£70,000 - £5,000) x 15% = £9,750/year

Notice how the marginal rate drops sharply at £50,270. Once you cross the UEL, each extra £100 of gross pay only costs you £2 in NI compared with £8 below it - a detail that matters when negotiating pay rises near the higher-rate threshold.

Quick NI Reference Table (Employee)

Salary	Employee NI	Monthly	Employer NI
£20,000	£594	£50	£2,250
£30,000	£1,394	£116	£3,750
£40,000	£2,194	£183	£5,250
£50,000	£2,994	£250	£6,750
£60,000	£3,211	£268	£8,250
£80,000	£3,611	£301	£11,250
£100,000	£4,011	£334	£14,250

Employee NI effectively flattens out around £3,000-4,000 because of the drop to 2% above £50,270. Employer NI has no such cap and increases linearly with salary, which is why many senior roles are restructured around benefits, pensions, or share awards to reduce the Secondary Class 1 bill.

Self-Employed NI (Class 2 and Class 4)

Self-employed workers pay Class 4 at 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above. The 2p reduction from 8p (main Class 1 rate) reflects that the self-employed do not receive employer NI contributions toward their State Pension record, although they do qualify for the full new State Pension on the same 35-qualifying-years rule.

Important change from 6 April 2024: Class 2 NI is no longer payable if your profits are at or above the Small Profits Threshold (£7,105 for 2026/27). HMRC automatically credits you with contributions for State Pension and contributory benefit purposes. Class 2 is now only paid voluntarily - typically by people with profits below £7,105 who want to protect their contribution record, or by UK nationals working abroad who want to keep their NI record going.

Worked example (self-employed, £50,000 profit):

• Class 4: (£50,000 - £12,570) x 6% = £2,245.80
• Class 2: £0 (not payable, treated as paid because profits exceed £7,105)
• Total NI: £2,245.80

Compare this to an employee on £50,000 who pays £2,994 in NI, plus their employer pays £6,750 on top. The total NI burden on employment income (£9,744) is far higher than on equivalent self-employment profits (£2,245.80) - one reason HMRC scrutinises IR35 and "disguised employment" arrangements so closely. Use the UK income tax calculator for a full employee vs self-employed take-home comparison.

What Does National Insurance Pay For?

National Insurance funds a set of contributory benefits rather than general public spending. The main ones:

• State Pension: You need 35 qualifying years of NI for the full new State Pension, which rose to £241.30/week (£12,547.60/year) from 6 April 2026 after the 4.8% triple-lock uprating (earnings link, as confirmed by DWP in the November 2025 benefits uprating statement). Each missed year reduces the pension by roughly 1/35 of the full amount, worth about £358/year.
• Statutory Sick Pay (SSP): £123.25/week for up to 28 weeks (2026/27), paid by employers but tracked via your NI record.
• Maternity and Paternity Allowances: paid when you do not qualify for statutory pay through an employer.
• New Style Jobseeker's Allowance and New Style Employment and Support Allowance - contribution-based benefits that do not depend on household income.
• Bereavement Support Payment - lump sum and monthly payments following the death of a spouse or civil partner.

In practice, NI revenue is not ring-fenced. It flows into the Consolidated Fund alongside income tax and other receipts. The National Insurance Fund is a separate accounting construct that the Government Actuary reviews each year, but there is no sealed pot of money - benefits are paid out of general government income. The main consequence for users is that your NI record (years of qualifying contributions) matters for entitlement, even though the amount paid does not directly buy a bigger pension above the full rate.

Salary Sacrifice and NI Savings

Salary sacrifice pension schemes reduce both your income tax and NI because the pension contribution comes out of gross pay before NI is calculated. A higher-rate taxpayer sacrificing £500/month saves: £500 x 40% income tax + £500 x 2% NI = £210/month in personal tax. Their employer also saves £500 x 15% = £75/month in employer NI, and many employers pass some or all of that back to the employee as an additional pension contribution. Over a full career those savings compound meaningfully - use the retirement calculator to see the effect on your final pot.

Sacrifice has two catches worth knowing. First, you cannot sacrifice below the National Living Wage (£12.71/hour from April 2026 for 21+), which caps what lower earners can do. Second, a reduced salary can affect mortgage affordability assessments, maternity pay, and protection insurance based on gross pay - lenders increasingly accept gross pay plus the sacrifice amount, but it varies. The salary calculator converts between annual, monthly, and hourly figures so you can check the impact quickly.

Voluntary Class 3 Contributions and Topping Up Gaps

If you have gaps in your NI record - for example from years spent abroad, studying, or on a low income - you can often pay Class 3 voluntary contributions to buy back missing years. Class 3 rises to £18.40/week for 2026/27, so a full year costs £956.80. Each purchased year typically adds about £358 to your annual State Pension for life, so the break-even is under three years of retirement. HMRC normally lets you go back six years, though transitional rules have let people reach further back in recent tax years. From 6 April 2026 the eligibility rules for paying voluntary NI from abroad tighten: you now need 10 years of prior UK residence or 10 years of prior NI contributions (up from three) to qualify, so expats should check carefully before assuming they can top up.

Recent NI Rate History and Why It Matters

The headline employee rate has moved four times in the last few years. It was 12% for a long period, rose to 13.25% in April 2022 when the short-lived Health and Social Care Levy was in place, reverted to 12% in November 2022 when the levy was scrapped, dropped to 10% from 6 January 2024, then to 8% from 6 April 2024. The rate has stayed at 8% since, while thresholds have been frozen under the Personal Allowance freeze. If you are comparing take-home across recent years, do not just scale a single percentage - use the correct rate for each year.

On the employer side, the direction is the opposite. Secondary Class 1 rose from 13.8% to 15% in April 2025, and the Secondary Threshold fell from £9,100 to £5,000 at the same time. Both changes mean hiring anyone on a reasonable salary now carries materially higher employer NI than just a year earlier, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out falls hardest on lower-paid roles. Employment Allowance was increased to £10,500 partly to offset this for small employers.

How NI Shows Up On Your Payslip

On a standard UK payslip you will typically see a line labelled "National Insurance" or "NI" showing the pound amount deducted in that pay period. Your NI category letter (usually A for standard working-age employees, M for under-21s, H for apprentices, C for state pensioners, B for some married women on the reduced rate) determines the exact rates applied. The NI number at the top - two letters, six digits, one letter - is your lifetime identifier and does not change between jobs. If it is missing or looks wrong on a payslip, flag it with payroll quickly because it routes your contributions onto the correct record.

Take-home pay is often easier to plan in monthly figures even if you are paid weekly or fortnightly. Divide the annual NI figure by 12 for a rough monthly deduction, then sanity check against your actual payslip - small differences usually come from the fact that NI is calculated per pay period rather than annualised, so irregular pay (overtime, bonuses) can produce a spike in one month that would not happen on a smoothed annual calculation.

Sources

• GOV.UK - Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027
• GOV.UK - Self-employed National Insurance rates
• GOV.UK - National Insurance rates and categories
• HMRC NIM70300 - Class 2 NICs: profits below the Small Profits Threshold
• GOV.UK - Voluntary National Insurance rates (Class 3)
• GOV.UK - The New State Pension

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