Financial Independence and N.I. qualifying years

Anonymous101

I have aspirations to and am working towards being financially independent before I'm 50. As this could happen before I have the number of qualifying years for the full state pension I've been looking into various options including working part time or making additional contributions to make up any missing years.

However I'm struggling to find a clear guide on the government website which tells me how much N.I. I need to pay for that year to qualify. Or if I had a shortfall for a few years how much I'd need to contribute to top that year up to a full qualifying year.

Could anyone point me in the direction of that information?

Linton

If you are not working you can make voluntary payments for Class 3 NI. Currently this costs about £760/year and is a fantasticly good deal because the cost is paid off in about 3-4 years extra State Pension.
See https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions


You can find out your current State Pension entitlement from https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension.

Anonymous101

Thanks Linton, they're the pages I'm looking at. I don't think they're terribly clear.
I've read that the top up's are possible and very good value previously but I don't quite understand the intricacies of it yet.

I'm currently thinking I may not need to work full time around 3-4 years prior to having full N.I. contributions so would like to try and work out the minimum I'd need to earn per year in a part-time role to meet the requirements. If my income did fall short presumably the top up amounts would be the difference from what I paid up to the threshold?

tacpot12

If you look up the lower earnings limit for National Insurance you will find the minimum pay per year for the year to qualify. It's £5876 at the moment.

Anonymous101

tacpot12 wrote: »

If you look up the lower earnings limit for National Insurance you will find the minimum pay per year for the year to qualify. It's £5876 at the moment.

Brilliant, thanks. I can use that for the time being.

tigerspill

tacpot12 wrote: »

If you look up the lower earnings limit for National Insurance you will find the minimum pay per year for the year to qualify. It's £5876 at the moment.

Thanks for this. I believe this is gross earnings?

greatkingrat

If that's all you earn you won't pay any tax or NI so gross and net will be the same.