Are you actually paying the National Minimum Wage?
Most underpayment is not a wrong headline rate. It is unpaid minutes at the edges of a shift and deductions nobody counted. Check the effective rate your staff are really on.
This checker gives an estimate only and is not legal or payroll advice. It models a single worker over one pay period using the rates that apply from 1 April 2026. Real HMRC calculations can look back up to six years, are made per pay reference period, and depend on the type of work a person does. Check GOV.UK or take advice before relying on this for a specific case. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Minimum wage compliance checker
Enter what you pay and the hours you pay for, then add any time worked outside those hours. Deductions and accommodation are in the advanced options.
Your effective hourly rate
Estimates only — verify before making decisions.
Why the headline rate is not the test
The National Minimum Wage is not a test of the number written in the contract. It is a test of total pay that counts, divided by total working time that counts, for each pay reference period.
That is why employers who genuinely believe they are compliant get caught. The contracted rate is right. The hours on the rota are paid correctly. But the ten minutes before opening, the bag check on the way out, the handover between shifts and the drive between two sites are all working time — and none of them were on the rota.
Deductions and unpaid working time are the leading causes of underpayment in HMRC’s enforcement data. Both are invisible in a payroll report, because payroll only ever sees the hours it was given.
Arrears are repaid at today's rate
Where the current minimum wage is higher than the rate that applied at the time, arrears are calculated at the current rate. An underpayment from three years ago is settled at £12.71, not at the rate in force back then — and it is settled for every affected worker, not just the one who raised it.
Employers are considered for public naming by the Department for Business and Trade where arrears reach £500, with a lower £100 threshold for repeat offenders.
The four things that most often cause underpayment
None of these involve paying a rate you knew was too low.
Unpaid time at the edges of a shift
Security checks, handovers, opening up and cashing up are working time. Ten minutes a shift over twenty shifts is 3.3 hours a month — enough on its own to drop someone paid exactly the minimum below it.
Deductions and required purchases
Uniforms, tools and PPE — anything bought because the job requires it — reduce the pay that counts, and written agreement from the worker is not a defence. Tax, NI, pension and conduct deductions do not.
Birthdays and apprenticeship anniversaries
A worker turning 21, or an apprentice passing their first year, moves up a band. Nothing in a payroll run flags it, so these become small underpayments that run for years.
Accommodation charged above the offset
Accommodation is the only benefit in kind that counts towards minimum wage pay, and only up to £11.10 a day. Anything charged above that reduces the pay that counts.
A worked example
A full-time worker aged 21, paid exactly the National Living Wage, with a ten-minute bag check at the end of every shift.
Monthly pay period
Non-compliant- Rate paid
- £12.71/hr
- Rate required
- £12.71/hr
The calculation
The contracted rate was correct to the penny. The breach came entirely from time that was worked but never rostered — and at £508 of arrears, this employer is over the £500 naming threshold.
What to do about it
The fix is not a better spreadsheet. It is capturing when people actually started and stopped, rather than assuming the rota was right.
In an HMRC enquiry the burden is on the employer to show minimum wage was paid, and a rota is evidence of what was planned, not what was worked. A clock-in record with a timestamp is what settles the argument about whether the ten minutes before opening were paid — and it is the same record the 52-week holiday pay average depends on.
Pay people for the hours they actually worked
RosterElf timestamps the start and end of every shift, so the hours reaching payroll are the hours worked — not the hours planned.
Stop guessing at the hours
RosterElf records when staff actually clocked in and out, so minimum wage compliance rests on evidence rather than on the rota.
Free checker
Good for a one-off check on a single worker
- Effective hourly rate after unpaid time
- Deductions and accommodation offset
- Arrears and penalty exposure estimate
- No signup required
- Actual clock-in and clock-out records
- Every worker checked every pay run
- Approved timesheets exported to payroll
- A six-year record you can produce on request
Full Suite
Rostering, payroll & HR in one
per employee per month
+ GST, billed annually
Payroll & HR tools in one system
- Smart rostering & availability
- Time & attendance (GPS & photo)
- Award interpretation & penalties
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UK minimum wage questions
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From 1 April 2026 the rates are £12.71 for workers aged 21 and over (the National Living Wage), £10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds, and £8.00 for under-18s and eligible apprentices. Rates change on 1 April every year.
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They are two parts of the same statutory system. The National Living Wage is the top band, payable to workers aged 21 and over; the National Minimum Wage covers the lower age bands and the apprentice rate. Neither is the same as the Real Living Wage, which is a voluntary rate set by the Living Wage Foundation and is not enforced by HMRC.
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The £8.00 apprentice rate applies while the apprentice is under 19, or is 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship. Once both stop being true they move to the rate for their age — a 21-year-old past their first year is entitled to £12.71.
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From the start of the next pay reference period after their birthday, not part-way through one. Because nothing in a payroll run flags a birthday, age-band transitions are a common source of small underpayments that run for years. See our minimum wage guide.