In this article we'll look at the best ways to prove your time spent working, both in the UK and abroad.
Proving UK Employment through HMRC
If you've spent time working in the UK, the easiest way for you to verify your activities is to contact HMRC and get your 'five year history'. This is a document that proves the start and end dates of every tax-paying job you've had in the past five years.
There are several ways you can get your five-year HMRC history. Here are the methods, along with instructions to follow:
Please find step by step instructions below and kindly follow each step carefully, please do not actually print this document, this button is used to save it in a usable format.
We require this as a one document PDF::
Click on the following link and start now: https://www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account/sign-in/prove-identity
If you don't already have a login then click Create sign in details and follow the steps
If you already have a login then you can Sign in
Click Pay as you earn
Click PAYE Income Tax History
At the the top of the page, click "Print this page"
Be sure to set this to save as .pdf, do not actually print this off as then your end date will still be required.
Please note that the "print" step is very important as this will then show your name as well as payment dates.
Here’s an example of how this should look. If it does not look similar to this page, it will not be accepted:
Calling HMRC
Generally, the best and most thorough way to prove your entire PAYE employment history is by providing your HMRC records with clear dates. If you are unable to do this, you can call them instead.
Please call HMRC on 0300 200 3300 and request your five-year employment history to be posted to you.
Both the phone call and request are free; it costs nothing to get it.
You can call them Monday to Friday, 8 am to 6 pm.
The call will take about five minutes, and the form generally arrives within five days.
References
We will always need to try and get references from your previous employers, but we will do this alongside using any documents you provide. In order to get this as quickly as possible, make sure you do the following:
Provide a company branded email address, ie. references@securitycompany.com, instead of a personal email address, ie. james@gmail.com
Ensure the email address belongs to either a central service like HR, or a manager that worked with you
Give them a heads up that a request will be coming in, especially if you're still on good terms with them
Other Documents
If you choose to provide other documents, we need a document that proves the day you started working, and another that proves the day you finished working.
If you worked at the company for a long time, we occasionally need proof of the middle if your employment too. These documents need to follow some specific rules:
They need to clearly show your name
They need to clearly show a date
The date needs to be within 31 days of your start or end date
You cannot use the same type of document to prove the start AND the end of your time working
Some good examples of documents are:
Payslips
P45s
P60s
Emails from the company that address you specifically, as an employee
Contracts
Bank statements that show incoming payments
If you're struggling to find documents, we recommend searching your employer name in your emails, or in your online banking.