Gender Recognition Certificate fee reduced

The Government has reduced the Gender Recognition Certificate fee to £5.

The Government has delivered on its pledge to reduce the fee of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

In response to the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, committed to modernising the process of applying for a GRC, reducing the £140 fee and moving the process online, making it fairer and simpler.

From today, applicants will be only required to pay £5, ensuring the process is more affordable and remedying one of the key issues that was identified by transgender people in the GRA consultation and the National LGBT Survey.

Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, said:

“As we build back better, we want transgender people to be free to live and to prosper in modern Britain.

“In the National LGBT Survey, 34% of transgender people told us that the cost of applying for a certificate was holding them back from doing so.

“Today we have removed that barrier, and I am proud that we have made the process of getting a certificate fairer, simpler and much more affordable.”

At December 2020, there have been a total of 5,871 full GRCs granted since 2005. Estimates suggest there are 200,000 to 500,000 transgender people living in the UK. The Government hopes that modernising the process of applying will allow more transgender people to legally change their sex with a GRC should they wish to do so.

The fee reduction is announced 4th May 2021 as secondary legislation, laid by the Ministry of Justice in April, and comes into immediate effect. The Government’s Equality Hub is currently working at speed to move the application process online, with more details to be set out in due course.

Payroll, employee Gender and HMRC reporting

HMRC still require gender to be reported on the Real Time Information (RTI) Full Payment Submission (FPS). Gender neutral or non-binary are not yet accepted. Gender no longer appears on form P60.

If an employees changes their gender, the employer needs to inform HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and make sure the employee is paying the right National Insurance.

Once the employee tells their employer that they plan to change gender, the payroll record can be updated with their new gender.

If both the employee’s name and gender are changing, report these changes in separate Full Payment Submissions (FPS). Else HMRC may create duplicate payroll records and the PAYE bill may inadvertently be higher than it should be.

PAYadvice.UK 4/5/2021