Do self-employed people still pay Class 2 National Insurance?

Not as a charge. At or above the small profits threshold it is treated as having been paid and your record is protected without paying anything. Below the threshold nothing is due either, but you can choose to pay voluntarily.

Should I pay voluntary Class 2 if my profits are low?

It is one of the cheapest ways to add a qualifying year towards the State Pension, so it is worth considering — but treat it as something you might buy rather than tax you owe. It should never appear as a line in a tax bill.

Why does my calculator still add Class 2 to the total?

Because it has not been updated since the 2024 to 2025 change. The error only runs one way — it overstates what you owe, and it hits hardest on small profits where a fixed weekly amount is a large share of the bill.

Do I Still Pay Class 2 National Insurance?

For most self-employed people the short answer is no, and a surprising number of calculators still say otherwise. Class 2 used to be a small weekly charge that almost every sole trader paid. It is not that any more. If your profits reach the small profits threshold, Class 2 is treated as having been paid — your National Insurance record is protected and no money changes hands. If your profits are below it, nothing is due either, but the year will not count towards your State Pension unless you choose to pay voluntarily. Neither case is a bill.

The sole trader calculator leaves Class 2 out of the bill and only offers the voluntary option where it actually means something.

What Changed, and Why Old Calculators Still Add It

The change took effect from the 2024 to 2025 tax year. Before it, Class 2 was a real weekly charge collected through Self Assessment, so almost every guide, spreadsheet and calculator written before then adds it to the total. Those tools have not been updated, and the error runs in one direction only: they overstate what you owe. It also lands hardest on the people with the least profit, since a fixed weekly amount is a larger share of a small bill — the group least likely to have an accountant checking the arithmetic.

Below the Threshold, Paying Is a Decision About Your Record

If your profits are under the small profits threshold, voluntary Class 2 is one of the cheapest ways to add a qualifying year towards the State Pension. That makes it worth considering rather than ignoring — but it belongs in a different mental category from tax. It is not something you owe; it is something you might buy. This is why it should never appear as a line in a tax bill, and why a calculator that includes it by default is not merely inaccurate but is answering a different question from the one you asked.

Class 4 Is the One That Actually Costs You

The contribution that does come out of self-employed profits is Class 4, and it has its own trap: it shares its two profit limits with the National Insurance employees pay, while using a different rate. That combination is unusually easy to get wrong, because a tool that reuses the employee rate produces a bill roughly a third too high and nothing about the output looks unusual. If a self-employed calculation feels heavier than you expected, the rate applied to Class 4 is the first thing worth checking.

What This Means for Your January Bill

Class 2 also sits outside the figure HMRC uses to work out payments on account, along with student loan repayments and Capital Gains Tax. So even in the years when someone does pay it voluntarily, it does not increase the two instalments — it lands only in the balancing payment. That is one reason a January bill can differ from a simple doubling of last year’s tax, and one of several places where knowing what is excluded is more useful than knowing the total.