Self-employed: how to pay National Insurance

We've updated this guide on 11th July 2019

While full-time employees have their income tax and National Insurance contributions (NI) paid through their employers (called the PAYE system), as a self-employed you have to calculate and pay them yourself.

Here is how you do it.

If you pay self-employed National Insurance through Self Assessment

Most self-employed people pay NI as part of their Self Assessment tax bill.

You need to pay 2 types of National Insurance:

Contribution	Profits from self-employment	How much you pay
No contribution	under £6,365	£0
Class 2	over £6,365	£3 each week
Class 4	between £8,632 and £50,000	9%
Class 4	over £50,000	2%

These are separate and cumulative.

For example, if you earn £60,000 from self-employment, you pay:

£3 each week
plus 9% of 41,368 (£50,000 – £8,632) = £3,723
plus another 2% of £10,000 (£60,000 – £50,000) = £200
total NI contributions: £4,079.

If you don’t pay NI through Self Assessment

You don’t pay self-employed National Insurance through Self Assessment if you’re:

living overseas
or a non-UK resident who’s self-employed in the UK.

You can still make voluntary Class 2 National Insurance payments – for example to make sure you get the full State Pension or to cover gaps in your National Insurance record.

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