Figures › Maternity, paternity, adoption and other family pay

Lower Earnings Limit (National Insurance and statutory pay)

The weekly Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance — the earnings threshold for qualifying for statutory payments.

£129.00per week

Corroborated Statutory Instrument Great Britain in force since 2026-04-06

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

Scope: Also £559/month, £6,708/year. Set by NI contributions regs, NOT by the up-rating Order (SI 2026/148 does not contain this figure - confirmed absent). Primary SI not independently fetched.

Current sources

Source A · LegislationThe Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran's Relief) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/231 (amending reg 10(a) of the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001: LEL £125 -> £129; in force 6 April 2026); as-made XML archived research/artifacts/uksi_2026_231_ni_rates_limits_made.xml

retrieved 2026-07-08

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
£129.00	2026-04-06	—	Corroborated	Legislation: The Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran's Relief) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/231 (amending reg 10(a) of the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001: LEL £125 -> £129; in force 6 April 2026); as-made XML archived research/artifacts/uksi_2026_231_ni_rates_limits_made.xml retrieved 2026-07-08 Official guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027 retrieved 2026-07-29
£125.00	unknown	2026-04-05	Primary source only	Legislation: legislation.gov.uk - Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds) Regs 2026 [NOT independently retrieved this run] retrieved 2026-07-08

Receipt

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

Figure ID: employment.statutory_payments.lower_earnings_limit
Name in the API: Lower Earnings Limit for NI / statutory payment qualification
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): si·GBP/week·GB·corroborated
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:259301104f571fa16bceabacf3fdf60ee4a789b0d3cd69fecee7ce1e520e9be6
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:d410515726d05e01e5f43d7d3e2de01c29d90f13f1d70789ff910df40cd4e776; Official guidance: sha256:2b130359261b54fc8f27f3e53cade20f559a6035397c2e3845de72e21ea4eede
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.statutory_payments.lower_earnings_limit"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.statutory_payments.lower_earnings_limit · current only: /v1/figures/employment.statutory_payments.lower_earnings_limit/current

Compiler's notes

Was single_source_B at interim compile (the LEL is NOT in the annual up-rating Order); upgraded to corroborated 2026-07-08 after locating and reading SI 2026/231 as-made. A live demonstration of the honest-status lifecycle.