The Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) has for­mal­ly no­ti­fied em­ploy­ers and work­ers that Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions will rise from 13.2 per cent to 16.2 per cent, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 5, 2026, fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the 2025 Fi­nance Bill.

The in­crease ap­plies across the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem (NIS) and rep­re­sents the first phase of a broad­er ad­just­ment an­nounced by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo dur­ing the bud­get in Oc­to­ber.  

A news re­lease from NIB yes­ter­day said a fur­ther three per cent in­crease is sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 2027, bring­ing the to­tal ad­just­ment to six per cent over two years.

In the state­ment, the NIB said the re­vised con­tri­bu­tion rate is nec­es­sary to ad­dress struc­tur­al pres­sures fac­ing the sys­tem, in­clud­ing a grow­ing num­ber of ben­e­fit re­cip­i­ents and a de­clin­ing pool of con­trib­u­tors. If left un­cor­rect­ed, the Board warned, these trends could threat­en the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the NIS and its abil­i­ty to meet fu­ture oblig­a­tions.

“The in­crease forms part of wider mea­sures to pro­tect in­sured per­sons and en­sure the con­tin­ued vi­a­bil­i­ty of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem,” the NIB said, adding that the changes are aimed at safe­guard­ing pen­sions and oth­er ben­e­fits for cur­rent and fu­ture ben­e­fi­cia­ries.

The Board al­so not­ed that it con­tin­ues to pur­sue op­er­a­tional re­forms along­side the re­vised con­tri­bu­tion struc­ture. These in­clude ef­forts to mod­ernise sys­tems, im­prove ser­vice de­liv­ery, and strength­en com­pli­ance to en­sure con­tri­bu­tions are ac­cu­rate­ly col­lect­ed and ben­e­fits are ef­fi­cient­ly ad­min­is­tered.

To as­sist em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees in prepar­ing for the change, the NIB has pub­lished an up­dat­ed con­tri­bu­tion rate ta­ble re­flect­ing the new 16.2 per cent rate on its cor­po­rate web­site.

Dur­ing his Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Tan­coo ex­plained that the con­tri­bu­tion in­crease would be im­ple­ment­ed in phas­es to ease the ad­just­ment for work­ers and busi­ness­es. He al­so an­nounced that the re­tire­ment age for re­ceiv­ing a full NIS pen­sion will grad­u­al­ly rise from 60 to 65, start­ing in Jan­u­ary 2028, as part of broad­er re­forms to sta­bilise the sys­tem.

Based on NIB da­ta, the 2026 ad­just­ment rep­re­sents an in­crease of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 22 to 23 per cent in em­ploy­ee con­tri­bu­tions, with em­ploy­ers con­tin­u­ing to pay twice the em­ploy­ee share, as stip­u­lat­ed un­der the cur­rent frame­work.

By 2027, when the full six per cent in­crease takes ef­fect, the fi­nan­cial im­pact will be­come more pro­nounced. An em­ploy­ee earn­ing the cur­rent min­i­mum wage is ex­pect­ed to pay an ad­di­tion­al $73.23 per month, while high­er-in­come earn­ers could see month­ly in­creas­es of up to $271.70.

The NIB has en­cour­aged em­ploy­ers and work­ers to re­view the up­dat­ed rates and plan ac­cord­ing­ly, not­ing that the changes are crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of T&T’s so­cial se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem.