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This article has been updated following the March 2024 Spring Budget.
National Insurance has become a firmly established part of Britain’s taxation system since its inception in 1911. Today it forms the basis for the social benefit payments that make up the welfare state, from sick pay and parental leave pay to state pensions and the National Health Service.
Until 1975, all contributions to National Insurance were made at a flat rate but since then, the process of calculating contributions has become more complex. What you pay will depend on how much you earn and what kind of employment you undertake.
As with many aspects of the UK’s tax code, National Insurance is a more complex business for self-employed people than it is for employees who pay their taxes through the PAYE system. So, here is our guide to understanding how National Insurance works for the self-employed, how much you will be required to pay and how and when you go about making your contributions.
Given that you will be required to pay National Insurance contributions (NICs) on your earnings from the age of 16 until you retire, most people will be very familiar with the concept and how their NI contributions are deducted from their pay slip each month. Most employees on a pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax model will pay class 1 NICs and these will be deducted, along with your income tax, before your salary reaches your bank account.
Most workers between the ages of 16 and their retirement must pay National Insurance, unless they earn below the primary threshold (which is £242 a week for the 2023/24 tax year).
Also, married women and widows who opted into the Reduced Rate Scheme before April 1977 are eligible for an exemption from paying class 2 NICs (though they must still pay class 4 contributions).
There are, broadly speaking, four classes of NICs:
As a self-employed person, you won’t need to worry too much about class 1 contributions, unless of course you split your time between self-employed projects and a PAYE job as freelancers often do. In this case, your PAYE employer will deduct your class 1 contributions alongside your income tax directly from your pay before it reaches you.
Between 6 July 2022 and 5 April 2023, most people will pay class 1 contributions of:
From 6 January 2024, the main rate of class 1 contributions will be cut from 12% to 10%. This tax cut is worth £450 for the average employee on £35,400 in 2024/25.
From 6 April 2024, class 1 contibutions will be yet again cut from 10% to 8%. This will save the average employee another £450 per year.
If you are employed by a company on a PAYE basis, your employer is required to make National Insurance contributions in addition to those that you make. These are known as class 1a and 1b, and from 6th April 2023 to 5th April 2024, both are charged at a rate of 13.8%. This remains into 2024/2025.
Class 2 contributions are payable by self-employed people and for the 2023/24 tax year are made up of a flat rate of £3.45 per week for any self-employed person with net profits over the Lower Profits Limit of £12,570 for 2023/24.
If your profits for the year fall below the Small Profits Threshold of £6,725, you can choose to pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance Contributions.
From April 2024, class 2 contributions will be scrapped. Self-employed workers will still qualify for the class 2 linked benefits. Those earning less than £6,725 can make voluntary contributions so they're entitled to those benefits.
Those who make between £6,725 and £12,570 will get a credit.
Class 4 contributions are also payable by self-employed people and for the 2023/24 tax year are calculated at:
From April 2024, the main rate on class 4 contributions, charged on self-employed earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, will also be cut to 6%.
For employees of companies using the PAYE method, all your income tax and NICs are calculated according to your tax code and deducted automatically from your salary before it is paid to you. For self-employed people, the picture is a little more complex. As with income tax, your NICs are calculated based on your self-assessment return filed with HMRC each year.
When you enter the details of your self-employed earnings and allowable expenses for the year into your tax return, HMRC will calculate your net profit and, from that, your National Insurance contributions in both classes 2 and 4.
For example, if your self-employed business made £25,000 in gross turnover in the 2022/23 tax year, and accrued £10,000 in expenses, your net profit for the year would be £15,000, putting you above the Lower Profit Limit of £12,570.
The deadline for submitting your self-assessment tax return and paying the tax and National Insurance you owe is 31st January.
Finally, there are some circumstances in which you may be required to pay class 2 NICs but you will not submit a self-assessment tax return. For instance, if you are:
In these cases, HMRC will contact you with a payment request by the end of October each year.
Whether you work for an employer using PAYE or you’re self-employed, there may be periods in your working life when you are not earning and therefore not paying NICs. This can lead to gaps in your contributions record. These gaps can affect:
This problem is compounded for some self-employed people because the nature of freelance work means that some years you are likely to earn less than others, making your record of contributions patchy and potentially incomplete.
This is where class 3 contributions kick in to fill gaps in your record and allow you to still access the complete range of benefits, including a full state pension. Class 3 NICs are known as Voluntary Contributions and are a way for self-employed people who make less than the £6,725 profit threshold to voluntarily contribute and avoid gaps in their record.
As with many aspects of the UK’s taxation system, National Insurance is a constantly evolving set of calculations meaning that, year to year, the amount you will be required to contribute can change.
An example of the evolutionary nature of National Insurance came back in 2016, when the government proposed abolishing the flat-rate class 2 NICs for self-employed people and replacing it with one single and restructured class 4 NIC, allowing access for contributory benefits such as job-seekers allowance and bereavement benefit. This proposal was abandoned in 2018 and class 2 and 4 contributions remained as they were. However, calls for reforms to self-employed NICs continue and further changes cannot be ruled out in the future.
In response to both the Covid-19 pandemic and the longer-term crisis in social care funding, class 1 and 4 NICs increased by 1.25 percentage points in April 2022 to directly fund the NHS and social care provision.
But from 6 April 2023, NIC rates returned to 2021/022 levels, with a separate Health and Social Care Levy becoming a new, separate tax charged at 1.25%.
Most recently in the November 2023 Autumn Statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced eye-catching changes to National Insurance Contributions for both the self-employed and employees. Read about all the changes announced in our article and find out what they mean for small businesses.
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This content has been created for general information purposes and should not be taken as formal advice. Read our full disclaimer.