How to check your National Insurance record

3 mins

Our experts at DSR Tax Refunds know how hard it is to find good, quality information about HMRC’s National Insurance rules and regulations that is easy to understand, and that’s why we have created these handy guides to tell you everything you need to know. Our aim is to make life easier for our clients and that is why we want to share our expertise with you. You can also call our friendly team on 0330 122 9972 – we’re the tax experts you can trust.

How do you check your National Insurance record?

You might know that you need to have paid a certain amount of National Insurance to be eligible for your State Pension but how do you know if you have paid enough, especially if you have had career gaps for any reason? You can check the record of how much National Insurance you have paid online, on the GOV UK website (under the National Insurance section).

You will need to sign in using a Government Gateway account, but you can set one up online if you don’t already have one. You might need to verify your online account when you sign in, so make sure you have your proof of identity documents handy (such as passport or similar).

If you don’t want to check your contributions online, you can also request a printed National Insurance statement either online or by phone to HMRC. You will need to specify which years you want the statement to cover. You can also write to HMRC to request this information. It won’t show you your contributions for this or the previous tax year though.

What will you see when you log in?

When you log in to check your NI contributions, you will see a list of all of the eligible years which will contribute to your State Pension. You will be able to see details of what you have paid (not including the current tax year as that information won’t be available until after the tax year has ended).

You will also see details of any National Insurance credits you may have received as well as any gaps in your contributions, where you haven’t paid enough to count towards a State Pension. It will also show you whether you can make any voluntary contributions to fill in any gaps you may have.

It will also tell you how many more years of contributions you will need to qualify for the full state pension. It won’t tell you how much state pension you will receive though.

However, this record won’t show any National Insurance contributions from the Isle of Man if you are due to reach pension age after 5th April 2016. To find out these contributions, you will need to contact the National Insurance office for the Isle of Man. You can email them at nationalinsurance.itd@gov.im.

How can DSR Tax Refunds help?

We know that calculating your National Insurance contributions can be a complicated affair, even with our helpful guide to tell you everything you might need to know. Our team of experts at DSR Tax Refunds are always on hand to help our clients and our excellent standing with HMRC means that we can make sure you don’t fall foul of their regulations, while claiming your maximum tax relief. We can even take care of all that paperwork and deal with HMRC on your behalf too. Call our friendly team on 0330 122 9972 – we’re the tax experts you can trust.

This page was last updated on 25/10/2018.

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