This version is in beta - expect some breaking changes.

Individual Employment API

Version and status
Available in Sandbox	Yes
Sandbox base URL	https://test-api.service.hmrc.gov.uk
Available in Production	Yes
Production base URL	https://api.service.hmrc.gov.uk

Overview

This API is one of a number of APIs that provide information that HMRC knows about an individual's tax affairs.

This API in particular provides information about an individual's history of employment for a given tax year, as reported to HMRC by their employer(s) through the PAYE process. The history of employment mainly contains details like Employer Paye Reference, Employer's name and Off Payroll Workflag (if available).

The primary intended use for this information is to pre-populate an individual's Self Assessment tax return.

Data availability

Data is only available for taxpayers who are registered for Self Assessment and had any employments in the given tax year.

Also, data is only available once PAYE reconciliation has completed. This is the process that determines whether the individual has paid the right amount of tax and, for PAYE-only taxpayers, results in a P800 in the event of overpayment or underpayment.

Reconciliation starts on or around 6th June and runs for around one million individuals per working night. It has usually completed by the end of September. Unfortunately it is not possible to know when reconciliation will be complete for a specific individual.

If we are expecting a P11D, reconciliation will not start for that individual until we have received and processed the P11D. If we receive a P11D unexpectedly, we will re-run the reconciliation.

Data is no longer available once we have received and processed the corresponding Self Assessment return.

Data quality

The data from this API is based on information we receive from employers and pension providers.

Note that:

• Pension providers sometimes don't tell us that income has come from a pension. In these cases, the API reports the income source as an employment.
• If the individual received a State Pension lump sum in the given tax year, this API will report it as an employment with a specific PAYE reference of 267/LS500.

Authorisation

The endpoint in this API is user-restricted. Your users must grant authority for your software to access it by signing in to their HMRC online account.

The API supports individual and agent users. Note that:

• Individual users can only access their own information.
• Agent users can only access their own clients’ data.

The following options are supported for agents:

Option 1: Agent services account

If the agent uses an agent services account, they can access their existing 64-8 clients who they have linked to their agent services account (restricted to 2 years’ history)

Option 2: HMRC online services for agents account

If the agent uses an HMRC online services for agents account which is enrolled for Self Assessment for Agents, they will be able to access their existing 64-8 clients (restricted to 2 years’ history).

Versioning

When an API changes in a way that is backwards-incompatible, we increase the version number of the API. See our reference guide for more on versioning.

Errors

We use standard HTTP status codes to show whether an API request succeeded or not. They are usually in the range:

• 200 to 299 if it succeeded, including code 202 if it was accepted by an API that needs to wait for further action
• 400 to 499 if it failed because of a client error by your application
• 500 to 599 if it failed because of an error on our server

Errors specific to each API are shown in the Endpoints section, under Response. See our reference guide for more on errors.

Testing

You can use the sandbox environment to test this API.

It supports stateful behaviour. You can set up test data using the Individual PAYE Test Support API.

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Endpoints

/individual-employment/sa/{utr}/annual-summary/{taxYear}

Get employment history

GET

Fetches an individual’s employment history for the given tax year.

Authorisation

This endpoint is user-restricted and requires an Authorization header containing an OAuth 2.0 Bearer Token with the read:individual-employment scope.

Path parameters

Name	Description
utr string required	The 10 digit self-assessment UTR for the individual. For example: 2234567890
taxYear string required	The tax year for the income being retrieved. Tax year in the format YYYY-YY For example: 2016-17

Request headers

Name	Description
Accept required	Specifies the response format and the version of the API to be used. For example: application/vnd.hmrc.1.2+json
Authorization required	An OAuth 2.0 Bearer Token with the read:individual-employment scope. For example: Bearer bb7fed3fe10dd235a2ccda3d50fb

See also fraud prevention.

Response

HTTP status: 200 (OK)

{
  "employments": [
      {
          "employerPayeReference": "123/AB456",
          "employerName": "Company XYZ",
          "offPayrollWorkFlag": true
      },
      {
          "employerPayeReference": "456/AB456",
          "employerName": "Company ABC",
          "offPayrollWorkFlag": false
      }
  ]
}

Name	Description
employments array required	An unordered list of one or more employments which the taxpayer had in the given tax year.
employerPayeReference string required	The employer’s PAYE reference. A value of 267/LS500 indicates a State Pension lump sum. For example: 123/AB456
employerName string required	The name of the employer. For example: Company XYZ
offPayrollWorkFlag boolean optional	The value of OPW flag. For example: false

Error scenarios

Scenario	HTTP status	Code
Invalid UTR	400 (Bad Request)	SA_UTR_INVALID
Invalid tax year	400 (Bad Request)	TAX_YEAR_INVALID
User not authorised to access data for given UTR	401 (Unauthorized)	UNAUTHORIZED
Data not available for given UTR and tax year (see the data availability section for more details)	404 (Not Found)	NOT_FOUND

For error scenarios that are common across all APIs, and for error formats, see our reference guide.

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