Guidance

About National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage checks — NMW FS1

Updated 12 June 2026

Check HMRC email updates, videos and webinars for employing people to find out about the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage checks carried out by HMRC.

This factsheet tells you about the checks we carry out to make sure you (as an employer) are paying your workers the correct rate of National Minimum Wage (NMW) or National Living Wage (NLW).

Where we mention NMW in this factsheet, we also mean the NLW.

NMW is the minimum amount employers must legally pay their workers. You’re responsible for making sure you pay your workers the correct rate of NMW and you must keep records to show you’ve done this.

This factsheet is one of a series. For the full list, go to GOV.UK and search ‘National Minimum Wage information for employers’.

We’re working in partnership with the Fair Work Agency and are responsible for making sure employers pay their workers the correct rate of NMW. We do this under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Employment Rights Act 2025. These acts explain the legal framework that entitles workers to receive NMW and give HM Revenue and Customs the power to enforce payment of NMW.

For more information about the Fair Work Agency, go to GOV.UK and search ‘Fair Work Agency’.

Our role

Under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Employment Rights Act 2025 we can speak to anyone we believe can provide any information we need for enforcement purposes. This includes employers, training providers and workers. This helps us get the information we need to decide if workers have been paid at least the NMW.

We choose which employers to check based on (one of the following):

• our own research
• if we’ve received a complaint that an employer is paying one or more of their workers below the NMW

Our visits and requests for information

The National Minimum Wage Act and the Employment Rights Act require you to produce information we ask for. During our check, we may ask for information or visit you at your business premises. We may ask you for (any of the following):

• information we think will show if you’re paying your workers at least the NMW
• explanations of anything in your records
• information we need to work out if you’ve paid your workers the correct rate of NMW

If we need to visit you, we’ll try to make an appointment at a time that suits you. We may need to visit you more than once. We don’t have to tell you why we’re checking your records or give you details of any information we may have received.

If you refuse consent for us to enter your premises, we may use our powers of entry or ask you to attend an interview at another location. If your premises is a dwelling, we may apply for a warrant.

We have learning and webinars you can join to help you learn more about the NMW. Go to GOV.UK and search ‘HMRC email updates, videos and webinars for Employing people’.

What happens during a visit

We’ll need to speak to you about the:

• work patterns of your workers
• arrangements you have in place for working out your workers’ pay

If someone else is responsible for working out pay, you’ll need to make sure they’re available for us to speak to when we visit.

We’ll need to see records that show how much you pay your workers. We may also need to take copies of some records. It’ll save time if you have these ready when we visit. If we think there are ways you should improve your record keeping, we’ll tell you.

We may have to do more research. We may also need to ask you, or your workers, for more information before we can decide whether you’ve paid them the correct rate of NMW.

At the end of our check

We’ll tell you when we’ve finished our visits and our check. We’ll also write to you to confirm any advice we gave you about changes to your record keeping. If we find you’ve paid any workers below the NMW, we’ll tell you if you owe them any arrears of pay.

Arrears of pay

We work out underpayments by comparing the amount you actually paid to your worker with the amount they should have been paid if you’d have used the correct rate of NMW. The difference between the amounts is the ‘underpayment’. You must pay any underpaid amounts to the worker as arrears.

If we find you’ve underpaid your workers, you’ll need to pay any underpaid arrears at the current NMW rate, not the rate that applied at the time of the underpayment. This means the arrears due could be more than the amount originally underpaid.

For more information on how we work arrears out, go to GOV.UK and search ‘Calculating the minimum wage’. To check current and past rates of the NMW or the NLW, go to GOV.UK and search ‘National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates’.

If you’d like more information, you can:

• go to GOV.UK and search ‘The National Minimum Wage and Living Wage’
• go to GOV.UK and search ‘HMRC email updates, videos and webinars for employing people’ — this offers further learning and webinars on the NMW

The Acas Helpline provides free, confidential advice in over 100 languages. You can call Acas on 0300 123 1100.

Notice of underpayment

If we find you’ve paid any of your workers less than the NMW, we’ll send you a notice of underpayment (NoU). This will tell you:

• how much you owe each worker and when you must pay them
• if you have to pay a penalty and when you must pay this by

A NoU is a legal demand for payment. If you don’t pay the amounts you owe to your workers, we can take action to recover them through a civil court or an employment tribunal. Or, for Northern Ireland, through an industrial tribunal.

Penalties

We can charge you a penalty if we find you’ve paid your workers less than the NMW. For more information, go to GOV.UK and search ‘National minimum wage law: enforcement’.

If you disagree

If you disagree with the NoU, you can appeal to an employment tribunal. You must do this within 28 days of the day the notice is given to you. We’ll send details of how to appeal when we send you the NoU.

If you do not co-operate with us

We encourage you to help us at all stages of our checks. If there’s a genuine reason why you cannot keep an appointment or give us what we ask for, please tell us as soon as possible. You can find our contact details at the top of the letters we have sent you.

It’s a criminal offence to intentionally prevent us from carrying out our checks or not give us the information we’ve asked for.

Labour market enforcement undertakings and orders

We can use Labour Market Enforcement (LME) undertakings and orders for more serious or repeated cases of non-compliance. They may put prohibitions, restrictions or impose requirements on your business to prevent or reduce the risk of non-compliance.

If you don’t comply with the terms of an undertaking by an agreed date, or refuse to give an undertaking, we’ll apply to the courts for an LME order. If you breach an LME order, it could result in a 2‑year custodial penalty and/or an unlimited fine.

For more information about LME undertakings and orders, go to GOV.UK, search ‘Guidance on calculating the minimum wage’ and choose the first ‘calculating the minimum wage’ option. Then go to ‘enforcing the minimum wage’.

Criminal prosecutions

If we find you’ve deliberately broken the law, we may prosecute you. For more information about NMW criminal offences, go to GOV.UK and search ‘National minimum wage law: enforcement’.

Publishing details of employers who break NMW law

If we find you’ve paid any of your workers less than the NMW, we’ll send your details to The Department for Business and Trade (DBT). They’ll decide whether to name you as an employer who has broken the minimum wage law under the NMW Naming Scheme. They do this because paying the correct rate of NMW is important and the public should be aware of employers who don’t comply with NMW rules. The DBT won’t name you until after we’ve finished our check.

We’ll send you a letter when we’ve finished our check. This letter will remind you that the DBT will consider adding you to the naming scheme.

If you think any of the exceptional circumstances for not being named apply to you, you can make a representation to the DBT. You’ll need to outline why you fall under any of these circumstances. The exceptional circumstances include:

• a risk of personal harm to an individual or their family by being named by the DBT
• national security risks associated with being named in this instance
• other factors which suggest it wouldn’t be in the public interest to name you or the company — you’ll need to provide details to support this

In practice, the DBT accepts very few representations. This is because the DBT take a restrictive view on what is in the public interest. The DBT have named businesses that have made ‘public interest’ representations on grounds they:

• inadvertently breached the rules
• relied on advice from a third party
• are a small business that’s relied on by the community

This is because it’s the employer’s responsibility to make sure they’re compliant with the legislation.

For more information on the DBT NMW naming scheme, go to GOV.UK and search ‘National minimum wage law: enforcement’.

Authorising a representative

If you have a representative, you can ask us to deal with them during the check. If you want to authorise a:

• professional adviser to act on your behalf, you’ll need to send us form 64-8, ‘Authorising your agent’ — to get one of these forms, go to GOV.UK and search ‘Authorise a tax agent’
• friend or relative, please write to us and tell us who you want to authorise and what you want them to deal with on your behalf

You can also get one by phoning:

• the officer who wrote to you
• our order line on 0300 200 3610

Workers’ rights

Workers are legally protected from being sacked or victimised if they’ve complained about not being paid the NMW.

More information

If you need help

If you have any health or personal circumstances that may make it difficult for you to deal with us, please tell the officer who contacted you. We’ll help you in whatever way we can. For more details, go to GOV.UK and search ‘Get help from HMRC if you need extra support’.

You can ask someone else to deal with us on your behalf, for example, a professional adviser, friend or relative. We may however still need to talk or write to you directly about some things. If we need to write to you, we’ll send a copy of our letter to the person you’ve asked us to deal with. If we need to talk to you, they can be with you when we do, if you prefer.

If you’re not happy with our service

Please tell the person or office you’ve been dealing with. They’ll try to put things right. If you still aren’t happy, they’ll tell you how to make a formal complaint.

How we use Open Source material

We may observe, monitor, record and retain internet data which is available to anyone. This is known as ‘Open Source’ material. It includes:

• news reports
• internet sites
• Companies House and Land Registry records
• blogs and social networking sites where no privacy settings have been applied

Your rights and obligations

The HMRC Charter explains what you can expect from us and what we expect from you. For more information, go to GOV.UK and search ‘HMRC Charter’.

Our privacy notice

Our privacy notice sets out the standards that you can expect from us when we ask for information or hold information about you. To read this go to GOV.UK and search ‘HMRC Privacy Notice’.