You pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for certain benefits (such as Jobseeker's Allowance and Maternity Allowance) and the State Pension. The payment of National Insurance is mandatory if you are 16 or over and are an employee earning more than £242 a week, or self-employed making a profit of more than £12,570 per year.
Some
key points:
- As a member of the regular Armed Forces, you will pay Class One National Insurance. For more information, the other classes are explained on the gov.uk website.
- Class One National Insurance rates were lowered on 6 January 2024 and again on 6 April 2024. New rates are:
- 8% on £242 to £967 a week (or £1,048 to £4,189 a month).
- 2% on over £967 a week (or £4189 a month).
- This change could save you up to £1,508 per year from the pre-January 2023 rate of 12%.
- Under the Tax Details section of the payslip is your NI Category. This will be A for the majority of serving personnel, or M if you are under 21. More details on other categories are on the gov.uk website.
- These payments are deducted from your monthly pay and appear as NI A (or other letter if relevant) in the Deductions section of your payslip.
- If you look at the Balances Current Period, you can see the total NIable Pay PTD (period til date). This is the pay that is eligible for National Insurance deductions in in the period covered by that payslip.
- Similarly to Income Tax, you don't pay National Insurance on allowances such as Get You Home (GYH) and Local Overseas Allowance (LOA), but you do pay it on Longer Separation Allowance (LSA).
- Your employer (ie, His Majesty's Forces) are also required to pay towards employees National Insurance (in addition to what you pay). For category A, this is 13.8% on £175.01 weekly (or £758.01 monthly) and above. More details can be found on the gov.uk website.
- If you look at the Balance Current Year section of your payslip, you can see your total contributions for the tax year (NI Employee YTD (year to date)) and your employers (NI Employee YTD).
- You can use the NICS calculator (currently unavailable) to calculate your monthly payments. You should input the NIable Pay PTD figure (not the Gross Pay PTD) figure to ensure it is accurate. This will show both your contribution and your employer.
