Maternity Allowance - only £27/week although I worked freelance for the past years and paid my NI contributions?

[Cinai2]

Just received a letter that I qualify for £27/week, which is a negative surprise…I’m registered as freelance for 10+ years, do my self assessments and pay my taxes and NI contributions. I assumed that means I qualify for the full amount. Anyone knows what might be the reason for that and if I can challenge it?

Have you been paying the Class 2 NI? I’d give them a ring, it may be that you don’t meet the NI threshold but they can tell you how much you would need to top it up by and you can then pay that.

It sounds as though you haven’t been paying the Class 2 NI contributions though as £27 per week is the amount given in that case.

Ring them! I had this as self employed but fortunately someone had warned me it would happen. Basically because of the way self employment goes the NI contributions are paid half in advance half in arrears. So when I rang I had to pay an additional sum (in the region of 20 quid) and it went up to the full amount. They told me I can claim the money back when I retire (if I remember!). As I said I had a self employed friend go through it a few months before me so I was expecting it but if you don't know it's a huge shock. X

Thank you! I’ll ring them tomorrow. I believe I have paid all NI contributions (also don’t think there was a choice not to anyway because my self-employment income wasn’t below the threshold during the past years).

They should tell you how to top up your contributions so you can get the full amount.

Yes it's a totally stupid system to do with how HMRC distributes the money you've paid them. But it was sorted for me super quickly x

www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/what-youll-get www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/what-youll-get]]]]

This gives info about MA