Maternity Allowance advice

[Thekindyoufindinasecondhand]

I am self employed and having a baby at the end of the summer. It's to early for me to apply for MA yet as I understand. I have read I am entitled to £140 per week based on certain criteria, which I seem to fit.
I spoke to a friend this morning who also said she fit the same criteria but was offered a lower payment of £27 per week based on her NI contributions being to low.

Does anyone have any advice on what the threshold of NI is to receive the highest MA payment available? Eager to pay into this if possible so I can receive full amount.
TIA

I claimed MA and got the full amount. I paid full class 2 contributions.
Make sure you do you tax return as soon as hmrc send you a letter saying you can, I think mine arrives in May, and pay your tax and NI contributions in full as they don’t pay MA unless NI is paid upto date.
If you don’t earn enough to pay NI make the voluntary class 2 payments.

Don't worry yet. I pay NI but didn't have enough paid for my test period as I'm still due to make my Self Assessment for 2019-2020, so they sent me a letter explaining I qualify for the £27, but if I want the full rate they will send me within 2 weeks the amount to pay in advance to qualify for the full rate. It was £6 for me as I was missing 2 weeks. Now I wait for next week to have my first payment.

So not to worry, for those self employed we can just pay voluntarily and we qualify. They'll tell you all once you apply, which is after week 25.

Thus is from the Gov website.

Thank you you everyone for your help.

Just wondering, if I paid around £200 in yearly NI contributions then, is that far off the bracket needed for the full MA pay?

You need to have paid at least 13 weeks( out of 66 weeks before your due date) of NI class 2, which at the moment is £3 a week. I think you qualify.
Don't stress, wait until you send your form and you can easily adjust if needed, but I guess you'll be fine with what you pay. I pay less than you and still qualified for the full amount.

As soon as the financial year is over in April, do your self assessment and pay what you are due, so there won't be any delay in your form being processed.

Thanks so much! So much to stress about when pregnant

Maternity Allowance is £148.68 per week or 90% of your average gross weekly earnings (before tax), whichever is the smaller amount. You will get the full amount of Maternity Allowance if you have paid enough national insurance contributions.

That's a copy and paste from the internet. I do my tax return as soon as I can, and pay everything I owe and get the full amount.

You can look on the website to see how much Ni contributions you have

When u apply if you haven't paid enough they give you the opportunity to top it up.

You then get £148 a week

Tell you friend to ring and chase. They are pretty useless. It took weeks of us going back and forth for them to realise we had paid up to date and we're entitled to full amount. They hadn't allocated my last NI payment into the system even though they could see if paid it. It was lost somewhere in the ether! They really are quite incompetent..... no one knew what they were doing.

@Lilice the 90% things doesn't apply to self employed people. All you have to do is pay your NI. You don't submit any payslips/proof of earnings if you're self employed for them to know how much you usually earn. They only care that you've paid NI

@PrayingandHoping oh yes that's right. I never had to prove my earnings.

Just to let you know if anyone recently applied.

I received the letter that I haven't paid enough NI so I will be getting £27 a week.
Then received the amount I could pay in advance if NI as I still have to do my latest financial return.
Paid what I was asked to pay.
Then I stopped working almost two weeks ago and sent them the final letter confirming when I last worked.
Phoned today to make sure they received everything just to find out if I haven't phoned they wouldn't have looked to update my payment to the maximum rate.
They assured me someone will finalise my claim tomorrow. I hope so. I've sent everything as soon as I could so was hoping in no delays.

So, yes. Check with them if you applied as I found they don't always check on updates. I should receive my first payment on Monday, hopefully it won't get to delayed as I need the money.