National Insurance Calculator 2026/27

Weekly and monthly National Insurance thresholds for 2026/27

Employee National Insurance is worked out on each pay period separately, not on your annual salary. That makes the weekly and monthly thresholds the numbers your payroll actually uses. For 2026/27 they are:

Why NI can be lower or higher than an annual calculation suggests

Because each payslip is assessed on its own, NI does not even out over the year the way income tax does. A worker paid £4,000 a month every month pays about £236.20 of NI each month. If instead they earned £2,000 for six months and £6,000 for six months, the same £48,000 annual pay produces more NI in the high months than an annual calculation predicts, with no refund later. Irregular pay, bonuses and back pay all interact with the period thresholds.

Company directors are the exception. They use an annual earnings period, so their NI is calculated on cumulative pay for the year, which stops directors from saving NI by paying themselves in uneven lumps.

If you have two jobs, each employer applies the thresholds separately. Two jobs paying £12,000 each can mean no employee NI at all, while one job paying £24,000 costs £914 a year.

Category letters: when the standard rates do not apply

Your payslip shows a category letter next to NI. Letter A covers most employees. The others change who pays what:

• C: employees over State Pension age. No employee NI is due, but the employer still pays.
• H: apprentices under 25. M: employees under 21. V: veterans in their first civilian job since leaving the armed forces. With these letters the employer pays 0% employer NI up to the upper secondary threshold, which is £50,270 in 2026/27, while the employee pays as normal.
• J and Z: employees who can defer NI because they already pay it in another job.
• X: employees who do not pay NI, for example because they are under 16.
• B: married women and widows with a valid certificate of election to pay the old reduced rate.
• F, I, L, S and N, E, D, K: versions of the main letters for eligible staff at Freeport and Investment Zone special tax sites.

What your National Insurance pays for: the State Pension

Each year in which you earn above the Lower Earnings Limit counts as a qualifying year on your NI record, even if you earned too little to actually pay anything. You need 10 qualifying years to get any new State Pension and usually 35 for the full rate, which GOV.UK lists as £241.30 a week.

Years with gaps can be filled by NI credits (for example while claiming Child Benefit for a child under 12 or certain benefits) or by voluntary contributions. Check your record and forecast in your HMRC online account before paying to fill a gap, because not every missing year increases your pension.

Worked example: employee and employer NI on a typical salary

On a £35,000 salary, employee NI is 8% of the £22,430 earned above the Primary Threshold: £1,794 a year, or about £149.53 a month. The employer pays a further 15% of £30,000, which is £4,500, before any Employment Allowance. So the total NI generated by that job is £6,294, more than half of it paid by the employer and never shown on your payslip.

At £80,000 employee NI is £3,611: 8% on the band up to £50,270, then 2% on the £29,730 above it. This is why higher earners see their marginal deduction rate as 42% rather than 48%.