How do I find out whether my employer tops up our wages to meet National Living (Minimum) Wage?

​

Take a look at recent payslips. If your pay has been topped up to meet National Living (Minimum) Wage, this is usually stated on the payslip. You can also ask your employer about this directly, though we recommend joining a trade union like Unison or GMB before starting any conversation about the terms and conditions of your employment, so that they may be able to support you in future if necessary.

​

If there is no mention of a top up on your payslip, this may mean that:

​

• Unpaid gaps during the pay period in question were not big enough to degrade your true hourly rate below the National Living (Minimum) Wage, or,

• You have been illegally underpaid the National Living (Minimum) Wage

​

If there is mention of a top up on your payslips, it is likely that:

• You were paid the National Living (Minimum) Wage for your work during the pay period, but no more.

​

I think I might have been underpaid by the National Living (Minimum) Wage. What can I do?

 

You can make a report to HMRC who will investigate your case. You can do this confidentially. If HMRC decides you have been underpaid the National Living (Minimum) Wage, you should be entitled to make a claim for back-pay from your employer.

​

How does HMRC work out whether or not I have been underpaid the National Living (Minimum) Wage?

​

HMRC is likely to ask you to provide one or more payslips, and the corresponding rotas. They will calculate your average hourly wage once all working time is considered across the pay period in question. This is why, to help people feel confident about making a report to HMRC, Homecare Voices provides a Pay Period Log to members of our free-to-join community in addition to our One Run Checker.

​

What length of gaps between care visits counts as payable working time?

​

In 2020, a judge ruled that travelling and waiting time of up to an hour between appointments should be compensated as working time for domiciliary care workers. Unfortunately, this case law has not since been formalised in common law. As a result, HMRC does not consistently recognise gaps of up to sixty minutes between care visits as payable working time when deciding whether a domiciliary care worker has been paid above or below the National Living (Minimum) Wage. Instead, we understand that HMRC often counts gaps of up to thirty minutes as payable working time, though on other occasions a cut off as low as fifteen minutes has been used.

 

For full transparency, if a domiciliary care workers who uses Homecare Voices’ One Run Checker submits visit times that include gaps of between thirty and sixty minutes between any of the visits, we provide two reports: one that uses a cut off of thirty minutes, and another that uses a cut off of sixty minutes. This helps people to feel confident about making a report to HMRC should they suspect they have been illegally underpaid the National Living (Minimum) Wage.

​

Is it really worth me reporting to HMRC?

 

• A member of Homecare Voices was granted five years to make a claim for backdated pay after HMRC confirmed they had been illegally underpaid the National Living (Minimum) Wage. This allowed them the breathing space to seek new employment before taking the matter further

• In October 2025, the government revealed that 500 companies - including a number of homecare providers - had been fined over £10 million by HMRC for failing to pay their staff the National Living (Minimum) Wage, with £6 million going straight back into workers’ pockets

• ​In 2020, a group of ten homecare workers were awarded £10,000 each after taking their employer to court over the impact of unpaid gaps on their true hourly rate of pay