If your employee is enrolled in the pension scheme with an Entitled status:

• They cannot have an Eligible status until they reach 22 and have earnings greater than £833 per month.
• They can become Non Eligible if their earnings increase. You should then begin making pension contributions for them at the minimum contribution levels (if you weren’t already).

If your employee is enrolled in the pension scheme with a Non Eligible status:

• They cannot have an Eligible status until they reach 22 and have earnings greater than £833 per month.
• They cannot become Entitled, so even if their earnings drop below £520 per month. You must continue to provide pension contributions for them.

But if the employee stops active membership and then asks to join again (or leaves and then returns to your employment), they should be reassessed based on their age and earnings.

Errors during file upload

During file upload, you may see an error explaining the auto-enrolment status of your employee isn’t correct. To solve this, you should check both your payroll and the data file you’re uploading to us to make sure they contain:

• the correct date of birth
• the correct auto-enrolment status.

Then amend your data file or payroll settings and then re-submit your data file to us.

If this is not the first time you’ve submitted your employee data, you won’t be able to change your pay reference period (PRP) dates yourself, but we can do this for you.

Get in touch to request this.

Once a member reaches age 75, they won’t get tax relief on their contributions. Should they continue to contribute, they need to be aware that no tax relief will apply.

Employer contributions will continue to benefit from relief from corporation tax.

• Log into your Online Services account.
• From your account home page, select ‘Manage employee details’.

• We’ll show you a list of your employees and highlight employees with missing details with a .

• If you have just a few employees, click ‘select’ beside their name. You’ll then be able to add their NI number.

• If you have lots of employees, you’ll find it easier to download a list of them. Click ‘Download results’ from the top right of your screen. The list will include current employees as well as any that have left the scheme in the last 12 months.
• Then sort and filter your results by NI number in Excel – this’ll help you identify any employees we need an NI number for.
• Use the search function on the employee details page within Online Services to find an employee and add their NI number.

If you use payroll software, don’t forget to update your employee’s NI number there too.

Need help?

You can get in touch if you need help.

Eligible

Use this status if an employee:

• earns over £192 per week (equal to about £833 a month or £10,000 a year)
• is aged between 22 and State Pension age
• ordinarily works in the UK.

You must put these employees into a pension scheme and regularly pay into their pension pots. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) sometimes refers to this as ‘type 1’ employees.

Non Eligible

Use this status if an employee:

• is aged between 16 and 21 or between State Pension age and 74
• earns over £192 per week (equal to about £833 a month or £10,000 a year)
• ordinarily works in the UK.

Or

• is aged between 16 and 74
• earns between the lower earnings threshold (£6,240 a year) and £10,000 a year
• ordinarily works in the UK.

A Non Eligible jobholder doesn’t have to be auto-enrolled into a workplace pension. They can ask to opt in to an employer’s pension scheme, and their employer will have to pay into their pension pots on a regular basis. TPR sometimes refers to this as ‘type 2’ employees. Read more about assessing an employee as Non Eligible on our website.

Entitled

Use this status if the employee:

• is aged between 16 and 74
• has earnings less than the lower earnings threshold (currently £6,240 a year / £520 a month / £120 a week)
• ordinarily works in the UK

An Entitled worker doesn’t need to be auto-enrolled. They can ask to join an employer’s pension scheme, but the employer doesn’t need to pay money into their pension pots unless they’d like to. Read more about assessing an employee as Entitled on our website.

What other statuses do we accept?

Contractual Enrolment

This is when employers put all of their employees into a pension scheme, without working out which employees they need to auto-enrol.

Each employee must agree to join the pension scheme and have contributions deducted from their salary, if applicable. This consent is given when they accept the terms set out in their employment contract.

Read more in our guide to contractual enrolment.

Not Known

• if you’ve chosen The People’s Pension to assess the eligibility criteria of an employee (new starter or in postponement period) on your behalf and the employee’s status hasn’t been confirmed yet, or
• if an employee doesn’t have a pension but does have Employee Life Cover/Employee Accident Cover with B&CE.

Not Applicable

Use when an employee is aged under 16 or over 75. This is because auto-enrolment doesn’t apply to them due to their age.

Already in qualifying scheme

Use when an employee has a pension elsewhere, in a pension scheme that is already a qualifying workplace pension scheme for auto-enrolment.. We don’t accept pension contributions for employees already in a qualifying scheme.

But if the employee stops active membership and then asks to join again (or leaves and then returns to your employment), they should be reassessed based on their age and earnings.

Errors during file upload

During file upload, you may see an error explaining you’re unable to change the enrolment status of your employee. To solve this, you should check both your payroll and the data file you’re uploading to make sure they contain:

• the correct date of birth
• the correct auto-enrolment status.

Then amend your data file or payroll settings and re-submit your data file to us.

Once details have been submitted, you’re still able to change some personal details through your Online Services account. Our Online Services – A quick guide covers how to do this with screenshots to help.

If you need to change an employee’s title, gender, surname, date of birth or National Insurance number, please get in touch with us.

When you submit a data file to us, we check their age according to the end date for that pay period.

When should an employee be auto-enrolled? 

You can upload your employee data for an Eligible employee if they’re aged between 22 and under State Pension age by the pay period end date of the file you’re uploading. There are a number of different times you’ll need to assess your employees’ eligibility – The Pensions Regulator has lots of information to help with this.

Only Eligible employees need to be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme, but all employees aged 16-74 have the right to opt in or join a pension scheme. To make sure these employees understand their rights to opt in or join the pension scheme, you should write to them:

• when you reach your duties start date, or
• when a new starter begins with your company, or
• when an employee turns 16 years old.

Our template letters can be used for this:

• Template letter – to let entitled/non-eligible employees know how to join or opt in to The People’s Pension
• Template letter – to tell your employees you’re using postponement

What happens if a Non Eligible or Entitled employee wants to join the pension scheme?

Non Eligible jobholders:  Require their employer to arrange for them to become an active member of a pension scheme by giving their employer an ‘opt-in notice’. If your employee asks to opt in, you’ll need to contribute to their pension at the minimum contribution level (but you can choose to pay more if you’d like).

Entitled workers: Require the employer to arrange for them to become an active member by giving the employer a ‘joining notice’. If your employee asks to join a pension scheme, you won’t need to contribute to their pension, but can choose to do so if you’d like.

What is an opt-in or joining notice?

It records that the employee requested to join the pension scheme. It’s important that employees assessed as Non Eligible jobholders and Entitled workers send you a valid notice before you add them to the pension scheme.

Both an opt-in or joining notice must be:

• in writing – but doesn’t have to be a formal document. It can be a letter or an email
• signed by the employee submitting it. If it was sent by email, it must include a statement from the employee confirming that they personally submitted the notice.

TPR states opt-in and joining notices must be kept by the employer in their original form for 6 years.

During a file upload, you may see an error explaining the auto-enrolment status of your employee isn’t correct. To solve this, you should check both your payroll and the data file you’re uploading to make sure they contain:

• the correct date of birth
• the correct auto-enrolment status.

Then amend your data file or payroll settings and re-submit your data file to us.

When an employee gives you their NI number, you’re required by law to provide us with this within 6 weeks of you receiving it if you haven’t provided it to us at outset. We also use NI numbers to help your employees trace and access their savings in the future.

Without a NI Number, we’re unable to claim tax relief

If you don’t have an employee’s NI number, then under HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) rules, if you’re deducting contributions from their pay after tax is taken (net tax basis), we won’t be able to claim tax relief from HMRC for them.

This could also result in your employees’ pension contributions being less than the minimum legal requirement. Under auto-enrolment rules, employers have a duty to ensure minimum contributions are paid.

For example, if one of your workers is making the minimum contribution of 5% (using the qualifying earnings basis) and they’re entitled to tax relief, you’d deduct 4% contribution from their pay and send it to us. We’d then claim 1% from HMRC as tax relief on the employee’s behalf. The total employee contribution would be 5%.

Important – if you don’t have the employee’s NI number, you have a duty to ensure that minimum contributions are paid. So, to comply with the rules, you’ll need to update your payroll to deduct and send us a 5% employee contribution (instead of 4%).

Deducting contributions before tax? (gross tax basis)

If NI numbers are missing but your account is set up on the gross tax basis, this will not affect the tax relief that they automatically get on their pension contributions. However, you’re still required by law to provide all employees’ NI numbers.

What happens if my employees can’t find their NI numbers?

If an employee doesn’t know if they have a NI number or has lost their NI number, they can find information about how to trace this on the government’s website. They can also use this link to apply for a NI number.

How do I add my employees’ NI numbers?

Visit our step-by-step guide on how to check for missing NI numbers and add these details.

If we assess your pension contributions for you

If you’re using The People’s Pension to assess your employees, we calculate pension contributions on the basis that you’ve provided a NI number for all employees. If you don’t include this information, your employees’ contributions won’t get topped up with tax relief from HMRC. This could mean that their contributions are less than the minimum legal requirement. You should update your payroll software to deduct and send us 5% employee contribution (instead of 4%) for any employees without NI numbers. This assumes that you’re using the qualifying earnings basis but you may be using an alternative method.

What if my employee doesn’t have an NI number?

Employees can visit the government website to apply for an NI number.

If you’re employing a citizen of a country outside the UK who isn’t resident in the UK, they may not have an NI number, but could still be entitled to tax relief. If this applies, either you or your employee or their employer will need to provide a statement to us giving reasons why they don’t have an NI number.

Your employee will need to notify us in writing within 30 days of a change in their circumstances after we’ve received this statement.