National Insurance exemption for Covid testing

HMRC has announced that any payments that an employer makes to an employee to reimburse them for the cost of a relevant coronavirus antigen test will be disregarded for the purposes of calculating National Insurance (NI) contributions.

As such, there will be no NI contributions liability for the employee or employer provided that the test that was paid for is one that can detect the presence of a viral antigen or viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) specific to Covid 19.

The disregard will apply to any advance payments or reimbursements made to an employee for the cost of a relevant coronavirus antigen test made on or after 25 January 2021, until 5 April 2021.