Posted: 26 / 02 / 2025

Article by: Melanie Donegan, Head of Personal Tax

Have you checked your eligibility for the Full State Pension recently?

It is often assumed that the full state pension will be available for everybody once you reach the required age, but this isn’t necessarily the case.  There may be gaps in your contribution history which means that if you don’t take action to fill those gaps, the pension you receive will be much lower than you were expecting.

HMRC made a concession available that allows you to backdate national insurance contributions dating back to 6 April 2006 to fill any gaps in these years if there is a shortfall in the amount of pension due to be paid to you. This concession ends on 5 April 2025, after which time any backdated payments will be capped at 6 years. You should therefore take action now!

It is simple to obtain your state pension forecast and review any gaps in contributions by accessing your Personal Tax Account. Log in or create an account here.

To qualify for a full state pension, you must have 35 qualifying years and there are many reasons why you could have gaps such as:

  • Employed but had low earnings
  • Employed but paying ‘Married Women NIC’
  • Opting out of SERPs (see here for details)
  • Unemployed and not claiming benefits
  • Self-employed but did not pay contributions because of small profits
  • Living or working outside the UK

Gaps can be filled with either; Class 2 NICs (for self-employed individuals) at the current rate of £3.15 per week or if you do not qualify for Class 2 NICs, the rate applicable is £15.85 per week.

If you would like us to review your individual situation, please feel free to contact either myself or a member of our Personal Tax Team.