The Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001

Class 3 contributions

48.—(1) Subject to sections 13(2) and 14(1) of the Act (Class 3 contributions only payable for purposes of satisfying certain contribution conditions and circumstances in which persons shall not be entitled to pay Class 3 contributions) and these Regulations, any person who is over the age of 16 and fulfils the conditions as to residence or presence in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland prescribed in regulation 145, may, if he so wishes, pay Class 3 contributions.

(2) It shall be a condition of a person’s right to pay a Class 3 contribution that he—

(a) complies with Part 7 in so far as it applies to persons paying such a contribution, and

(b) complies with either of the two conditions specified in paragraph (3).

(3) The conditions are that the person specified in paragraph (1) shall either—

(a) pay the contribution not later than 42 days after the end of the year in respect of which it is paid; or

(b) subject to regulation 50 and Part 6, pay the contribution—

(i) where the contribution is payable in respect of any year before 6th April 1982, before the end of the second year following the year in respect of which it is paid; and where the contribution is payable in respect of any year after 5th April 1982, before the end of the sixth year following the year in respect of which it is paid; or

(ii) where the year in respect of which it is paid includes a period of at least 6 months throughout which the contributor has been undergoing full-time education, or full-time apprenticeship or training for which, in either case, any earnings are less than the lower earnings limit, or has been undergoing imprisonment or detention in legal custody, before the end of the sixth year following the year in which the education, or apprenticeship or training, or imprisonment or detention terminated; and

(iii) where the year first mentioned in head (ii) is immediately preceded or followed by a year in which the conditions specified in that head are not satisfied in respect only of the length of the period specified in that head, in respect of that preceding or following year, before the end of the sixth year following the year in which the education, apprenticeship, training, imprisonment or detention described in that head terminated.