How can I pay current voluntary National Insurance contributions while receiving PIP?
I am a long-term recipient of PIP. This is the only benefit I receive. I have just discovered that my NI contributions have not been paid! I can see how to pay past years.
Going forward I would like to pay NI contributions so that I can receive a full State Pension. I can't see on the Government websites how to do that. Can anyone give me advice?
Many thanks
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I found this
If you look at the contents, there's a page on who can pay them and then page is on how to pay it
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Actually ignore that i saw that you already saw that link as its for paying past years
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- Google search (or any seach engine!) "Pay voluntary NI contributions"
- Check you are opening the official site.
- If you already have a government gateway account, sign in and download the form
- Otherwise you MUST create an account. You need a passport, driving license and answer security questions to create an account. A bit of a faff but once it is done, it's done and it is useful for checking your state pension.
DO NOT LOSE YOUR GG PASSCODE!!! Write it down as well as having your password manager remember it.
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Hello @InTheHills
@Fuji is on the right track here and @anisty made a good suggestion about having the online account to check.
But you may not have to buy the years. I've split my suggestions up in to what to do going forward and what to do looking back.
Going forward you should put in a claim for any one of the following: Universal Credit, New Style ESA, New Style Jobseekers Allowance, Carers Allowance or Carers Credit, the one most suitable for your personal circumstances. By putting in a claim to any of these benefits your NI contributions will be paid for you.
To learn more and find out which benefit is the most appropriate visit this webpage:
Alongside putting in a claim for NI you should do a benefits check on a website such as 'entitled to' or 'turn 2 us' and see if there is anything else you can claim or by contacting your local citizens advice and asking for a 'benefits check'.
Looking back before you pay for past years contact the Future Pension Centre to make sure that you need to buy past years or whether you only need to get credits going forward. Their details are here:
Hope this helps.
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Call HMRC National Insurance Helpline at 0300 200 3500 for assistance with paying NI contribution gaps and setting up voluntary contributions for your state pension.
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Thats a good suggestion to call the HMRC but first its always better to find out if you need to pay. To find that out you need to speak to the Future Pension Centre at the DWP. I'm writing this in case it helps you if you're in a similar position.
Further, for @InTheHills they could get credits instead of paying going forward which would save around £900 per year. Again, in case that helps you too.
Hope that helps.
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I am very grateful for all the responses I have had to my query. As a newcomer to this forum I am greatly impressed by both the number of people who have tried to help me and the quality and clarity of the responses. It is very refreshing to find such a civilised place online!
I was thinking that there might be a way to pay NI contributions monthly as the year went by, as you would do in employment, but I can’t find any evidence of that. Presumably at the end of each year I can pay a lump sum through the “past years” route.
Another way seems to be to register as self-employed with a very small annual income. (I do a very small amount of online editing work) If you are registered like that you can then pay voluntary contributions.
I am 23 years away from State Pension Age and the Government website says I need 19 more to be eligible for a full pension.
@flour - many thanks for your breakdown. You include some links that I did not know about, I will follow them up. Can you explain what you mean by “get credits instead of paying going forward which would save around £900 per year.” - what credits are these?
@MW123 - thanks for the phone number, that might be useful.
Thanks all
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Hi and a very warm welcome to the community.
Sorry I don't know the answer to your question but hopefully someone else will come along and advise you.
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If you claim certain benefits, your NI contributions will be paid for you. I think flour mentioned most of the benefits that qualify.
One not mentioned is child benefit. If you have children, you should be sure that you are getting the NI credits and not a partner with a higher income than you.
For all the years you are on any means tested benefits, your contribution will be paid for you and show up as "credits" in your Gov Gateway account.
I thought you could pay quarterly as voluntary contributions?
You're right about being able to pay monthly via self employment.
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Hello @InTheHills
Thanks for coming back and a warm welcome to the forum!
You've given some more useful information which is very helpful. I'm going to use writing in bold to highlight important bits.
Because you've said you've got 23 years to go until you claim state pension and only need 19 more years for full state pension you do not need to pay for past years you can just deal with it going forward.
The advice I gave earlier about NI going forward has changed but you can now ignore the earlier advice about looking back just focus on going forward.
Here is some extra information about national insurance.
Everyone gets national insurance for state pension from:
- employment, and
- self employment, and
- claiming benefits (credits).
The national insurance you get for state pension is the same from any of those three (e.g. someone claiming benefits their whole life gets the same state pension as someone whose worked their whole life)
To take a closer look at your personal circumstances.
Important information about you:
- Self employed
- Disabled
These two things together are significant because you may become eligible to claim a benefit called New Style ESA .
When claiming New Style ESA you'll get
- National insurance credits for state pension, and (with class 2 NICS) either
- £90pw (for up to 1 year), or
- £140pw (ongoing)
provided you are not found fit for work by the Work Capability Assessment. This is not the same as a PIP assessment but has similarities, form to complete, rights to appeal etc...
Option A To get paid New Style ESA you'll need to pay class 2 national insurance contributions for the tax years 22/23 and 23/24 this will cost around £350. To be able to do this you'll need to register your self employment with HMRC back to April 2022 but because I'm assuming you've had income of less than £1,000 you've not needed to register - but you are still can now. Once registered you can then pay voluntary Class 2.
I'd suggest, getting advice from Tax Aid Phone: 0345 120 3779 to confirm the above.
If you decide not to pursue New Style ESA in payment by paying class 2 NICS then Option B is to claim New Style ESA without any class 2 NICS. It's the exact same application and Work Capability Assessment process but you won't get any money, you will only get national insurance credits.
A final Option C is you can also choose to look beyond claiming New Style ESA and can look at Universal Credit, New Style Jobseekers Allowance, Carers Allowance or Carers Credit, if one of these most suitable for your personal circumstances (full list linked below). By putting in a claim to any of these benefits your NI contributions will be paid for you in the same way as New Style ESA.
Alongside putting in a claim for NI you should do a benefits check on a website such as 'entitled to' or 'turn 2 us' and see if there is anything else you can claim or by contacting your local citizens advice and asking for a 'benefits check'.
Above all else my advice is you should avoid paying for voluntary national insurance contributions for the next 19 years as you have free options open to you.
Hope that helps.
Further information:
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Popping back to say thank you, specifically to @flour
I have run my eligibility for Universal Credit through the two benefit websites mentioned (which I did not know of before) It looks as if I might be eligible however I do unfortunately(!) have some savings which hover around the threshold for payments.
I have also contacted my local job centre and got the form “Application for National Insurance Credits” - which looks pretty formidable (16 pages). The person I spoke to there did also suggest I pursued the UC route first.
@flour's point about not needing to pay for past years was welcome, I was just about working out that was true.
The New Style ESA route looks interesting and I am now looking at that. The result that just gives me NI credits would be OK as that is my objective. I am happy with my PIP payments… but of course it now looks as if that is all up in the air.
So thanks again.
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Thank you for coming back and you are welcome.
I'm glad you've used some calculators and found out you can get UC - to claim I'd advise speaking to Citizens Advice Help to Claim 0800 144 8444 service for further advice and support with the claim.
You need to move away from looking to claim National Insurance Credits as a standalone claim. E.g. this form from the Job Centre. Instead you'll either be getting it from UC or New Style ESA.
Further, because you may have a reduction in your UC because of capital you should claim New Style ESA because New Style ESA does not have reductions applied to it because of capital.
You claim both Universal Credit and New Style ESA at the same time.
You seem to think New Style ESA will only give you credits. This is wrong. New Style ESA will also pay you money. But to get money from it you need to back fill the last few tax years with Class 2 NI by first registering as self employed for the last few tax years with HMRC, then paying the class 2 and then you claim New Style ESA.
Do all that at the same time as claiming UC - unless your UC payment will always stay above NSESA Monthly Amount.
Hope this helps.
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