Minimum wage checker

Minimum wage rates now and from April 2027

The rates change every year on 1 April. The government sets them by regulations after advice from the Low Pay Commission, an independent body of employer, worker and independent members. The 2026 rates are in the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2026; the 2027 rates were recommended by the Commission in a letter of 23 October 2026 and accepted in full by the government on 28 October 2026, the day of the Budget.

Every band rises by the same 3.9% in 2027, a smaller step than in 2026, when the 18 to 20 rate rose by 8.5%. The Commission explained that it had weighed a weaker job market against the cost of living, and paused the narrowing of the gap between the 18 to 20 rate and the National Living Wage. The April 2027 page sets out the details, and the history page lists every rate since 2019 for arrears that go back further.

What counts as pay

Your payslip's gross pay is the starting point, not the answer. HMRC's guidance on calculating the minimum wage sorts every sum into three groups.

• Counts: basic pay, bonuses and commission, and the basic rate part of any overtime or shift hours.
• Left out: the premium part of overtime or shift pay above the basic rate, tips, gratuities and service charges, allowances not consolidated into pay, expenses refunded, loans and advances, and benefits in kind other than accommodation.
• Taken off: deductions or payments you make for the employer's own purposes, such as a uniform the job requires, tools, required training or travel it imposes, and salary given up under salary sacrifice.

Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions you pay to a scheme, union subscriptions and repayment of a loan or an advance do not reduce minimum wage pay: they are paid out of wages you have already earned. The pages on uniforms, overtime and shift premiums, tips and salary sacrifice each have a checker for that one rule.

Hours that count

For most jobs paid by the hour, the hours that count are the hours of work, plus time when you are required to be available at or near the workplace, plus training, travel during the working day and waiting time the job requires. The trip from home to a fixed workplace and back does not count. Rest breaks do not count either, unless you are made to keep working through them.

Some cases need care. On a sleep-in shift, only the time you are awake to work counts if a suitable place to sleep is provided. Care workers travelling between clients must be paid for that time. Trial shifts beyond a short test of skills are work. The pages on training, travel and waiting, sleep-ins and on-call time and trial shifts go through each rule. Salaried workers and those paid by output have their own methods, set out on the salaried hours and piece work pages.

Weekly, monthly and yearly pay at the minimum

The law sets an hourly rate. Weekly pay is that rate times your weekly hours; a year is 52 weeks, and a month is a twelfth of a year. A full-time week of 37.5 hours at the National Living Wage comes to £476.63 from April 2026 and £495.38 from April 2027, or £24,784.50 and £25,759.50 a year before tax.

After Income Tax and National Insurance, with the standard tax code, that full-time year leaves about £21,364.44 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2026 to 2027. The after tax page has a calculator for any hours, and the employer cost page adds employer National Insurance for those who pay wages.

Your age and your birthday

The rate follows your age on the first day of each pay reference period. When you turn 18 or 21, the higher rate starts with the first pay period beginning on or after your birthday, not on the birthday itself. Under compulsory school age there is no minimum wage at all; the 16 to 17 rate starts once you can leave school, which is the last Friday in June in England and Wales, 31 May or the start of the Christmas holidays in Scotland, and 30 June in Northern Ireland.

Each age has its own page with the rate, a weekly pay table and the next step: 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, with a separate page for under 16s.

Apprentices

The apprentice rate, £8.00 from April 2026 and £8.31 from April 2027, applies to apprentices under 19 and to apprentices aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship. From the first anniversary of the start, an apprentice aged 19 or over must get the rate for their age: £10.85 at 19 or 20 and £12.71 at 21 and over today. Time spent on off-the-job training is working time and must be paid.

Accommodation provided by the employer

Accommodation is the only benefit in kind that counts towards the minimum wage, and only up to the accommodation offset: £11.10 a day, or £77.70 a week, from April 2026, and £11.53 a day from April 2027. Free accommodation adds the offset to your pay for the check. A charge above the offset takes the excess off your pay; a charge at or below it has no effect. Charges for gas, electricity and furniture can count as part of the accommodation charge.

If you are paid less than the minimum wage

Underpayment is money owed to you. The employer must repay it as arrears, recalculated at today's rate when that is higher than the rate at the time. HMRC can order repayment with a notice of underpayment and a penalty of 200% of the arrears, up to £20,000 per worker, and employers who underpay might be named by the government. You can:

1. keep your payslips, contract and a record of the hours you worked;
2. ask your employer in writing to check and correct the pay, and ask to see its minimum wage records, which you are entitled to see;
3. complain to the official service with the pay and work rights complaint form, on which you can ask HMRC not to tell the employer who complained;
4. call the Acas helpline on 0300 123 1100 (Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm) for free advice, or make a claim to an employment tribunal.

The underpayment page walks through each step, the arrears page works out what is owed, and the eligibility page covers who is entitled, including agency workers, zero hours workers and interns.

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