Claiming the Employment Allowance for tax year 2026/27 will be easier via the Employment Payment Summary (EPS). In this tax year (2025/26), whilst the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Act 2025 removed the Allowance from being treated as State Aid, the RTI fields remained valid in payroll software and HMRC’s systems.
On 25 June 2025 in communication to software developers, HMRC advised that all State Aid-related fields will be removed. These are:
- Data item 199 - 'Employer is in the agriculture sector'
- Data item 200 'Employer is in the fisheries sector'
- Data item 201 'Employer is in the road transport sector'
- Data item 202 'Employer is in the industrial/other sector'
- Data item 203 'State aid rules do not apply'.
For Bookkeepers
Like tax year 2025/26, there will be no need to consider the value of any de minimis State Aid before making the annual claim for the Employment Allowance on the EPS. Unlike this tax year, in 2026/27, there will be no requirement to indicate ‘State Aid rules do not apply’ and the only requirement will be to tick that eligibility exists.
In this regard, the above legislation made no changes to eligibility apart from the removal of the £100,000.00 threshold. The other eligibility restrictions still apply, for example single-director companies and connection. ICB highlights the eligibility guidance on Gov.UK, all of which remains valid at the time of writing:
