Brits are being urged to review their National Insurance records to ensure their credits are up to date with just days left to boost their pension by buying back any missing years. National Insurance credits are a way of protecting your NI record when you are unable to work due to ill health, unemployment, or caring responsibilities. They can help contribute towards your state pension and other benefits.
British workers have until April 5, 2025, to make an extended backdated claim for National Insurance credits, which could boost their state pension by thousands of pounds. HMRC unveiled an online tool to help people top-up their credits. The largest resulting weekly state pension increase was £107.44 (equivalent to around £5,750 a year added to your state pension on average for each year you buy back). However, HMRC’s tool can’t be used by everyone and won’t be expanded before the deadline.
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) only allows people to backdate gaps for the past six years, but it allows workers to claim back any lost NI credits, as they are called, from April 2006 to April 2018.
Buying back credits means you can increase the amount of State Pension you receive.
When the ‘new’ State Pension was introduced in 2016, the DWP removed the six-year rule back to 2006, making a total of 13 years available to buy back. This deadline has been extended three times since the announcement due to demand, but the final deadline is April 5, 2025.
How the NI state pension top up works
The current full State Pension is £221.20 a week (£230.25 from April 2025). However, to get that full amount, you will need to have 35 qualifying years of NI contributions.
Workers who have taken time off from employment, such as to raise a family or care for older relatives, may have gaps in their NI contribution history.
From April 6, the deadline to buy back 13 missing years will pass forever, so you will not be able to add as much as £5,750 per missing year for the years 2006-2019 if you miss this deadline, which could mean tens of thousands missing from your state pension which you could have had.
How much does it cost?
Making up for one year of missed NI contributions will cost you up to £907.40, which will add £302.64 per year or £5.82 per week) to your pre-tax State Pension. However, the rate you pay depends on which year you’re topping up.
If you don’t top up your State Pension you’ll get an amount which reflects the number of years you have full NI contributions for.
If you have 30 years of NI contributions, then you’d get 86% of the full State Pension, £190.23 per week (2024/25).
You can top up your NI in two ways via the Gov.uk website:
- making voluntary Class 2 National Insurance contributions; or
- making voluntary Class 3 National Insurance contributions.
You can’t pay to increase your State Pension beyond the maximum of £221.20 per week (2024/25).
When not to top up your State Pension
Certain benefits automatically come with NI credits, so you may find no gaps in your NI contribution record even though you weren’t working. If you received these benefits, you may not need to top up your State Pension. Examples include:
- if you were on Child Benefit;
- if you were a grandparent looking after children,
- if you were on maternity, paternity or adoption pay;
- if you were on statutory sick pay or
- if you were unemployed and actively looking for work.
If you were ‘contracted out’ of the Additional State Pension before the changes took effect in 2016, then you’ll need to check on Gov.uk whether topping up can help.
