How to make payments to National Insurance to top up contributions

[Cailleach]

Help!

I urgently need to top up my NI contributions and deadline is Monday.

The gov.uk website is as clear as mud - i can check contributions but no information on how to actually pay them. Can anyone help? Google is no use either.

Right under the overview there is a green ‘pay now’ button.

www.gov.uk/pay-voluntary-class-3-national-insurance

There's a link on here. One link for if you were self employed or one if you missed contributions?

www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines

There is indeed a green pay now button, but it asks me for a reference number on my bill.

What bill? Good question. You have to ring them when they are open for a reference number. The deadline is the 5th. They are not open until the 6th.

So basically i have missed the deadline. I cannot believe that in 2021 you can't just pay over the internet....ridiculous.

You have 6 years to pay.

Yes but that six years expires Monday. I am autistic and really struggle with this stuff.

Do you definitely need the missing year(s)? Are you getting to retirement age and don’t have the full 35 years?

I ask because there’s lots of ways to be credited contributions if you’re not working or earn under the threshold so you could boost your years that way if you have time.

Are you employed or self-employed?

Do you know the exact amount you need to pay?

What happens if you just put your name in as the bill? Or your NI number or something? Will it let you bypass that question?

@Silkiescat Currently employed but wasn't back then. Yes there is a shortfall quote on the website.

@Elieza it asks for a specific 18 digit reference number. Which they will only give you over the phone. Oh well :(

Where you claiming benefits? If you were claiming child benefit for a child under 12 or unemployment benefits I think it gets paid automatically though if it says insufficient for that year and amount then yes you would need to pay that amount.

If you do need to pay I would send the amount via bank transfer as they suggest but do your own reference as your NI number, they reference you via that. Then send a letter to explain what you have done (Or phone or e-mail but they can be very hard to get on phone especially on 6 April). Put in the letter you name, address, phone, e-mail if you use that and your NI number and say that you have made a payment for £x which to pay for the NI for the XX tax year. They'll send it back if its wrong and over though can be delays.

Wait - they only back date your catch up by six years?

@Silkiescat No, I wasn't claiming any benefits.

@MsAdoraBelleDearheartVonLipwig yes, only six years. Ridiculous isn't it?

To be fair 6 years is a huge amount of time. You have left it until two days before the deadline.

OP has already explained she’s autistic and given the shocking rates of employment amongst autistic people it’s great that she’s employed now and trying to sort this out. Doesn’t mean it’s easy.

OP, I would call first thing Tuesday and explain. As Monday is a bank holiday maybe there’s some flexibility but if not you can pay at least the five years contributions and get it done?

Use this for the meantime and on Tuesday call them and have the payment allocated to the correct reference number which they can help you with. This just means you don’t miss the deadline and also your payment doesn’t get ‘lost’. It’s just there and gets allocated correctly once you speak to them.

Reference number
Use your National Insurance number followed by ‘IC’, your surname then your initial. If your bank limits you to a certain amount of characters, you should use your National Insurance number followed by ‘IC’ and as much of your surname as possible.

Thank you to everyone who was helpful.

I think I ought to look into this. We claimed child benefit but stopped it a few years ago as it was interfering with dh’s tax.