Topping up your State Pension – Act now! Urgent Deadline of 5 April 2025
The full State Pension has recently rose to £221.20 a week. Qualifying for the full State Pension will depend on how many qualifying years you have banked paying National Insurance (NI) – the more years you have, the bigger portion of the £221.20 you will receive. You will need at least 10 qualifying NI years to get some state pension and about 35ish to get the full amount.
HMRC have been offering the option to top up any gaps in the NI records back to 6 April 2006. However, this offer is due to expire on 5 April 2025. After this point, the option will only be for the previous 6 tax years.
What is a qualifying year?
A qualifying year is one in which you were:
- Working and made National Insurance contributions.
- Getting National Insurance credits for example if you were unemployed, ill or a parent or carer.
- Paying voluntary National Insurance contributions.
What can cause gaps in National Insurance?
Not paying National Insurance will cause a gap in the record. This can be caused by the following factors:
- Employed but had low earnings.
- Unemployed and were not claiming benefits.
- Self-employed but did not pay contributions because of small profits.
- Living or working outside the UK.
How to check for gaps in the record
This can be viewed on your personal HMRC tax account via the HMRC app or online services. I have included the weblink below, straight to HMRC. This will enable you to check if there are gaps in your NI record – if it says “year is not full” this could simply mean a week of credits is missing and therefore you get nothing for that year. Click on “view details” to see how short you are and find out if making a payment would increase your State Pension. You can also call the HMRC National Insurance: general enquiries helpline on 0300 200 3500. https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record
You are also able to check if you are on track to receive the full State Pension by going to – https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension. Again, you will need to log into your personal tax account. If you are set to receive the full State Pension, then it will say £221.20 a week – you can’t go higher than this so don’t try!
Buying back NI years
You will need to decide soon whether it’s worth buying back missing years – if you are under 45, planning to remain in the UK and continue working for much of the rest of your life then you should have plenty of opportunity to fill these gaps before State Pension age.
The nearer 60 you are the less time you have to fill the gaps naturally and may view the cost of buying back missing years a lucrative option for you.
This is of course a decision you will need to make based on your personal circumstances.
The Deadline!!
HMRC have already extended the buy back deadline once so it’s unlikely they will do this again. You can log your request by webchat or telephone with HMRC or even the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). It is advisable to get this on record before the 5 April deadline even if it doesn’t fully go through until after.
