Minimum wage underpayment penalty: maximum per worker

The most the minimum-wage underpayment penalty can be for any one worker.

£20,000.00

Primary source only Act of Parliament Great Britain in force since 2026-04-07

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

Scope: Part 5 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 replaced the notice-of-underpayment regime in NMWA 1998 ss.19-19H from 7 April 2026 (Sch 10 para 23; SI 2026/323 reg 4), with the Secretary of State — the Fair Work Agency — as enforcer. The 50% reduction for paying within 14 days is s.108. No GOV.UK page states this figure, so the record has no guidance source and is single_source_A by design.

Current sources

Source A · LegislationEmployment Rights Act 2025, c. 36 s. 107(5) ("But if the amount determined under subsection (4) for any underpaid individual would be more than £20,000, the amount for the individual taken into account in calculating the penalty is to be £20,000")

retrieved 2026-09-08

History

Value	From	To	Status	Sources
£20,000.00	2026-04-07	—	Primary source only	Legislation: Employment Rights Act 2025, c. 36 s. 107(5) ("But if the amount determined under subsection (4) for any underpaid individual would be more than £20,000, the amount for the individual taken into account in calculating the penalty is to be £20,000") retrieved 2026-09-08

Receipt

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

Figure ID: employment.nmw.enforcement_penalty_max_per_worker
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): act·GBP·GB·single_source_A
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:d13dbbe79cf71edfb5cc8b845da21575a4f523a7c23804f608d90c1daf5865c0
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:a619d519a978758f08a1c2b7554cc0a19b6378376c726035e76c551dba56c3b3
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.nmw.enforcement_penalty_max_per_worker"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.nmw.enforcement_penalty_max_per_worker · current only: /v1/figures/employment.nmw.enforcement_penalty_max_per_worker/current

Compiler's notes

An act carry read from the 2025 Act's current view: no F-note touches s.107, which is original text. effective_from is the day the old regime was omitted and this one commenced (7.4.2026, from the F-note on NMWA s.19A naming SI 2026/323 reg 4).