National Insurance Explained: When Do Students Have to Pay It?

Students do not get a special National Insurance exemption. If you work and earn enough, you pay it in the same way as other employees.

For the 2026/27 tax year, employees generally start paying Class 1 National Insurance when they earn more than:

For most employees, the main rate is 8% on earnings between the Primary Threshold and the Upper Earnings Limit of £50,270 a year. Earnings above that are charged at a lower rate.

The important difference from Income Tax

National Insurance is normally calculated per pay period, not simply from your total income for the whole year.

This means you could work intensively during the summer, earn less than £12,570 over the entire tax year and still pay National Insurance because your weekly or monthly earnings were above the threshold.

Unlike overpaid Income Tax, you generally cannot reclaim correctly charged National Insurance just because your annual earnings later turn out to be low.

What if you have a part-time job?

If you earn below £242 in a particular week, you will normally pay no employee National Insurance for that week.

Your employer calculates and deducts any National Insurance automatically through PAYE, so you generally do not need to arrange the payments yourself.