National Insurance: employee main rate

The main employee National Insurance rate, charged between the primary threshold and the upper earnings limit.

Corroborated Act of Parliament Great Britain in force since 2024-04-06

Checked against its sources: statute verified 2026-09-21·guidance verified 2026-09-21

Scope: Charged on earnings above the primary threshold up to and including the upper earnings limit; earnings above the upper earnings limit are charged at the additional primary percentage of 2%. Reached 8% by two cuts in quick succession — 12% to 10% on 6 January 2024, then 10% to 8% on 6 April 2024. Categories with a zero-rate relief (under-21, apprentice, veteran, Freeport, Investment Zone) affect the EMPLOYER's secondary contributions, not this employee rate.

Current sources

Source A · LegislationNational Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Act 2024, c. 5 s. 1(1)(a) (amending s.8(2)(a) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992: main primary percentage 10% -> 8%; in force 6 April 2024; as enacted)

retrieved 2026-07-25

Source B · Official guidancehttps://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027

retrieved 2026-07-29

History

Value	From	To	Status	Sources
8%	2024-04-06	—	Corroborated	Legislation: National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Act 2024, c. 5 s. 1(1)(a) (amending s.8(2)(a) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992: main primary percentage 10% -> 8%; in force 6 April 2024; as enacted) retrieved 2026-07-25 Official guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027 retrieved 2026-07-29

Receipt

Everything above is reproducible and independently checkable — no trust in this site required (how verification works).

Figure ID: employment.ni.class1.employee_main_rate
Name in the API: Class 1 National Insurance: employee main primary rate
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): act·percent·GB·corroborated
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:8c705823b9a30e02b2863cd4356d8464db9d69867c867e13ef9b328daadac97c
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:6051af52a22b5ac0ab713c6ed92444367fcdc91102d934e8a799249ed4ff7e41; Official guidance: sha256:2b130359261b54fc8f27f3e53cade20f559a6035397c2e3845de72e21ea4eede
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.ni.class1.employee_main_rate"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.ni.class1.employee_main_rate · current only: /v1/figures/employment.ni.class1.employee_main_rate/current

Compiler's notes

Set by the NIC (Reduction in Rates) Act 2024 s.1(1)(a). That section is drafted as a distributed list: one "for 10% substitute 8%" applied to both s.8(2)(a) of the GB Act and the identically numbered provision of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992. The corpus is GB, so the extraction selector names the GB Act; the Northern Ireland amendment is deliberately unselected. Effective 6 April 2024 per the Act's own s.3(1).