State Pension

If you have gaps in your national insurance payments, dating back to 2006, you will be able to go online to see if you need to make additional contributions.

You can use the new HMRC online tool 'check your state pension forecast (https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension)' which is now live. This is a joint service being run by HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions. It calculates if any outstanding national insurance contributions are required to ensure that you receive the full state pension when you retire.

This new HMRC online tool will allow taxpayers under the state pension age to view gaps in their national insurance record and then make voluntary contributions to fill in these gaps and benefit from them.

Last year, the government extended the deadline to pay voluntary national insurance contributions to 5th April 2025 for

those individuals affected by new state pension transitional arrangements. This relates to the fiscal years from 6th April 2006 to 5th April 2018.

From 6th April 2025, taxpayers will only be able to make voluntary contributions for the previous six fiscal years, in accordance with normal time limits.

Taxpayers must log in to the new digital service with their personal tax account details or through the HMRC app.

An individual needs 35 years of national insurance contributions in order to get a full state pension, which is £11,500 a year.

It normally costs approximately £825 to fill in a missing year. This will then boost your state pension by approximately £330 a year, and will be worth £6,700 over a 20 year retirement.