National Insurance Contributions: Age
(asked on 17th September 2025) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the estimated annual cost of the age-related exemption to the payment of National Insurance contributions.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes the estimated annual cost of exempting individuals over State Pension age from paying National Insurance contributions (NICs) in the National Insurance contributions tab of the Structural Tax Reliefs publication. The estimated annual costs for employer NICs relief for apprentices under 25 and employees under 21 are published by HMRC in the NICs tab of the Non-Structural Tax Reliefs publication. These publications are both available online.
The figures for these three exemptions/reliefs are shown below:
Name | 2019 to 2020 | 2020 to 2021 | 2021 to 2022 | 2022 to 2023 | 2023 to 2024 | 2024 to 2025 |
Exemption for individuals over State Pension Age | 1,200 | 840 | 1,100 | 1,500* | 1,400* | 1,100* |
Relief on employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices under 25 | 190 | 190 | 230 | 290 | 320 | 340* |
Relief on employer National Insurance contributions for employees under 21 | 630 | 560 | 670 | 850 | 960 | 1,000* |
Note 1: Figures shown are in £ million.
Note 2: Figures marked with an asterisk (*) are provisional