Employment Allowance
When to claim
You need to claim Employment Allowance every tax year.
You can claim at any time in the tax year, but the earlier you claim the sooner you will get the allowance.
If you claim late and do not use your Employment Allowance against your employers’ Class 1 National Insurance liabilities, you’ll have to ask HMRC to do one of the following:
- use any unclaimed allowance at the end of the year to pay any tax or National Insurance you owe (including VAT and Corporation Tax if you do not owe anything on your PAYE bill)
- give you a refund after the end of the tax year if you do not owe anything
You cannot claim a refund for the difference between your total employers Class 1 National Insurance liability, and the full amount of Employment allowance for the tax year.
You can see how much Employment Allowance you’ve used in your HMRC online account.
Claiming for past years
You can claim Employment Allowance for the previous 4 tax years, dating back to the 2020 to 2021 tax year.
For the tax years 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, it does not matter how much your employers’ Class 1 National Insurance liability was or how much de minimis state aid you received.
The thresholds for employers’ Class 1 National Insurance and de minimis state aid do not apply.
Employment allowance was:
- £5,000 each year between 6 April 2022 and 5 April 2024
- £4,000 each year between 6 April 2020 and 5 April 2022
Further information
Read ‘Claiming Employment Allowance: further employer guidance’ for more information.