classwho

According to the guidelines the reference for voluntary NIC from overseas should be in the following format for a person named 'A JONES' whose NI number is QQ123456A as follows : QQ123456AICJONESA. In my case my surname is longer than 'Jones' and hence I only manage to include part of my surname. However, my bank allows me to put in more that 18 digits and I could include all of my surname and first name. Is there an absolute limit of 18 digits for the reference number when using the above system for voluntary NICs from overseas?

https://www.gov.uk/pay-class-2-national-insurance would suggest that this is an option. From what I can see you just need to put your NI insurance number on the back of the cheque. But it's probably best to clarify with HMRC. They are very helpful. Average wait times are between 20mins and 30 mins. But if your mum has a UK bank account you could just ask her to do an IBAN transfer and include your NI number in the reference field as per the above correspondence from HMRC.

I think the " How to make the payment from abroad has a few hidden subtleties especially when paying from a Euro account to a Sterling one". If you pay in Euro then you will have to pay a little more to ensure that when it's converted to Sterling, it's sufficient to cover the exchange rate for the NI contributions. In addition you can use the Reference field as proposed by HMRC. Job done if you haven't either over estimated or underestimated the Euro payment to HMRC. On the other hand if you pay in Sterling from a Euro account you can pay the exact amount because you are buying Sterling at that point. The disadvantage is that you now have NO Reference field. Instead you have to hope that HMRC will be happy to accept your NI number in the "Message to Payee " field. Job done as long as HMRC can use the "Message to Payee" field. As far as I can tell most people pay in Euro and "hope for the best " with the exchange rates, by paying a little bit more.