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National insurance contributions (with the exception of employer's Class 1, Class 1A, Class 1B contributions, and Class 4 contributions) entitle the payer to some degree of state benefit if they are paid sufficiently regularly at a high enough level. Other benefits, known as non-contributory benefits, are payable to any person who qualifies for them by lack of means and by circumstances, whatever their contribution record.

The level of contributions necessary to secure a contributory benefit is known as the 'earnings factor' (the factor appropriate to a particular benefit being referred to as 'the relevant earnings factor'), and any year for which the earnings factor is sufficient is a 'reckonable year' for benefit purposes¹.

Where no actual payment (or insufficient payment) of contributions has been made, a contributor may in certain cases be credited with payment up to the relevant earnings factor and no further contribution is then needed to make the year qualify. If a contributor is eligible for such a credit they cannot make Class 3 contributions (though they suffer no loss by this as such contributions