National Insurance Calculator

This national insurance calculator works out your UK employee NI for 2026/27 in seconds. Enter your salary and it applies the 8% and 2% Class 1 rates — with the full working shown, plus Class 4 figures for the self-employed.

You don’t need an accountant to work out your National Insurance. You need your salary, two rates, and one threshold. This national insurance calculator gives you the figure in seconds — but if you’d rather see the maths yourself (and you should, at least once), everything is laid out below. Nothing to buy, no email required.

A quick note on what you’re getting: this covers employee National Insurance (Class 1) at the standard Category A rates, which is what almost everyone pays. The self-employed pay a different flavour — Class 4 on profits — and that’s covered further down too.

How National Insurance is calculated (employees)

For 2026/27, employee National Insurance (Class 1) is charged at:

• 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270 a year
• 2% on anything above £50,270 a year
• Nothing below £12,570

That’s the whole formula. There’s no tapering of the allowance like income tax has, no personal-allowance complications — NI doesn’t care about your tax code. Find the slice of your earnings that falls between £12,570 and £50,270, take 8% of it. Anything over £50,270 gets 2%. Add them together.

One thing that catches people out: unlike income tax, NI thresholds don’t follow you between jobs. Each employer applies the £12,570 threshold separately to what they pay you. If you have two part-time jobs, you can end up paying more NI overall than someone earning the same total from one job. HMRC won’t come back and even it up for you.

2026/27 National Insurance rates and thresholds

Type	2026/27 rate / threshold
Employee (Class 1) — £12,570 to £50,270	8%
Employee (Class 1) — above £50,270	2%
Employee (Class 1) — below £12,570	0%
Employer (Class 1) — above £5,000 per employee	15%
Self-employed (Class 4) — profits £12,570 to £50,270	6%
Self-employed (Class 4) — profits above £50,270	2%
Self-employed (Class 2)	£3.65/week — treated as paid if profits are £7,105 or more, so nothing extra to pay

The employer figure matters even though it never appears on your payslip. That 15% above £5,000 is what your employer pays on top of your salary — it’s part of the true cost of employing you, and it’s exactly what gets recalculated when contractors compare PAYE roles against umbrella arrangements.

National insurance calculator: worked examples

Example 1: £35,000 salary

NI is only charged on the amount between £12,570 and £35,000:

1. Taxable slice: £35,000 − £12,570 = £22,430
2. Annual NI: £22,430 × 8% = £1,794.40
3. Monthly: £1,794.40 ÷ 12 = £149.53
4. Weekly: £1,794.40 ÷ 52 = £34.51

Example 2: £60,000 salary

This crosses into the 2% band, so it’s a two-part calculation:

1. First band: £50,270 − £12,570 = £37,700 → £37,700 × 8% = £3,016
2. Second band: £60,000 − £50,270 = £9,730 → £9,730 × 2% = £194.60
3. Total annual NI: £3,016 + £194.60 = £3,210.60

Notice how small that second part is. The 2% band barely registers compared with the 8% band — which is why higher earners often feel their NI “drops off” past £50,270. It does.

Example 3: self-employed, £40,000 profit

Self-employed workers pay Class 4 NI on profits, and the rates are kinder than the employee ones:

1. Taxable slice: £40,000 − £12,570 = £27,430
2. Class 4: £27,430 × 6% = £1,645.80

Class 2 (the flat £3.65/week charge) is treated as paid when profits are £7,105 or more a year, so there’s nothing extra to add for most self-employed people — it only becomes a real payment for voluntary top-ups when profits fall below that threshold.

Employee vs self-employed National Insurance

Employee NI (Class 1) is deducted automatically through PAYE — you never see the money. Self-employed NI (Class 4) is paid through Self Assessment, in one hit when you file. Same thresholds, different rates: 8%/2% for employees, 6%/2% for the self-employed.

The self-employed rates are lower, but the trade-off is real: you build fewer rights to certain benefits. It’s one of the reasons the “employed vs self-employed” take-home comparison is never as simple as just the headline tax rates.

National Insurance categories: which letter are you?

Most employees are Category A — that’s the standard rate, and it’s what this calculator uses. Your category letter appears on your payslip. A few common alternatives:

• Category H — apprentices under 25
• Category M — employees under 21
• Category C — employees over State Pension age (0% employee rate — see below)

If your payslip shows something other than A, your actual deduction will differ slightly from this calculator’s estimate. But running your salary through at Category A still gives you a close comparison figure.

What does National Insurance actually pay for?

NI isn’t a savings account — it’s how you build entitlement to specific state benefits. The big one is the State Pension. You typically need 35 qualifying years of NI contributions for the full State Pension, and at least 10 years to get anything at all.

If you’ve had career gaps, time abroad, or years below the threshold, you can check your own record and qualifying-year count with GOV.UK’s National Insurance record checker. Gaps can sometimes be filled with voluntary contributions — worth looking into well before you retire, not after.

The State Pension age exemption

Once you reach State Pension age, you stop paying employee National Insurance — even if you keep working. The exemption isn’t automatic in the sense of “the system just knows”: you show your employer proof of age (a birth certificate or passport usually does it) and they switch your category letter so no NI is deducted. Your employer still pays employer NI on your earnings, though. The state gives with one hand and keeps collecting with the other.

What your national insurance calculator result means — and what to do next

The national insurance calculator result is your annual, monthly and weekly employee NI for 2026/27 at Category A rates. It’s what your payslip should show (per pay period) before any salary-sacrifice arrangements like pension contributions or cycle-to-work are applied — those reduce the earnings NI is calculated on, so your actual payslip figure can legitimately be lower than this estimate.

Worth doing next:

• Check it against your payslip. Multiply your per-period NI by your number of pay periods and compare. Small rounding differences are normal; big ones aren’t.
• Check your qualifying years. The money matters, but so does the pension entitlement underneath it. GOV.UK’s NI record checker takes minutes.
• Run the whole picture. To see how NI fits into your full take-home pay, run your figures through our umbrella company calculator too.
• Part-time? If you’re part-time, try working out part-time pay first, then enter the annual figure above.

Common mistakes people make with National Insurance

Comparing gross salaries between a job and self-employment. A £50,000 salary and £50,000 of freelance profit don’t cost the same in NI. Different rates, different collection, different benefit rights.

Assuming two jobs work like one. As mentioned above, each employer gets its own £12,570 threshold. Two £15,000 jobs can cost you more in NI than one £30,000 job.

Thinking NI and income tax share a threshold. They happen to both start at £12,570 this year, but they’re separate systems. Your personal allowance can be tapered for income tax (over £100,000) while NI stays exactly as this page describes.

Paying NI after State Pension age by accident. If you’ve reached State Pension age and your payslip still shows an NI deduction, tell your employer — they’ll need proof of age to stop it.

Frequently asked questions