Working with no National Insurance Number

Hi guys,

My wife and I are hoping to hear back from UKBA soon regarding her spouse visa application. For now she has started to apply for jobs as it can't hurt.

There is an opening in Chester where the closing date is 18th April. Considering it will then take them a week to process all applications we hope timing works out in our favour. Again, it doesn't hurt to apply.

However she obviously doesn't have a National Insurance number as of yet. She is obviously entitled to one once she arrives. However, it asks for a NIN on the application. Can she put....'TBC'? Or can she work for a month or so while the NIN application is in motion? Or is it strictly she has to have one before working?

Many thanks,

Ben

You don't have to have a NIN before starting work... If you don't, you will just be taxed at the emergency rate until you have one.

However, a lot of companies do ask for it when you apply, but I'm not sure what you do if you don't have one. It might be worth checking with the company if they require it for the application or if it's okay to just put that she will be applying for one when she arrives.

I worked for ~2 months without an NI number. HR kept asking me for it, and I kept putting it off and then finally called and got one (easiest thing I did related to this move, BTW...had I known that, I wouldn't have put it off ). They withheld taxes at the emergency rate before I had the number and then reduced withholdings after that...I do need to claim back the excess paid.

If she can, I would just leave the field blank on the application. If that's not possible, I would but TBD or XXXXX or some such obvious non-entry in the field. Weirdly, for my new job, they wouldn't actually interview me until I could produce my NI number, but hopefully that won't be an issue for you. (For my initial job, no one even asked for the number until I had been working for a few weeks)