State Pension

How your State Pension is calculated

Both State Pension systems are based on your National Insurance (NI) contributions or sometimes on your partner’s NI contributions. You might have got these by:

• paying NI while working
• claiming NI credits while claiming certain benefits, such as unemployment benefits
• making voluntary NI contributions.

You’ll need NI contributions for a certain number of qualifying years to get a State Pension. How many depends on whether you’d claim the basic State Pension or the new State Pension. Read Gov.uk for more on what counts as a qualifying year.

As long as you’re at least 30 days away from reaching State Pension age, you can get a personalised estimate of your State Pension. This will tell you how much you’re likely to get based on your current National Insurance record.

The new State Pension

You can get the new State Pension if you reach your State Pension age on or after 6 April 2016. This means you’re:

• a woman born on or after 6 April 1953
• a man born on or after 6 April 1951.

The full rate for new State Pension is £179.60 a week for 2021/22. But the amount you get could be more or less than this.

• You need 35 qualifying years or more of NI contributions to get a full new State Pension.
• If you’ve got between 10 and 35 qualifying years, you’ll get part of the full rate. This is 1/35th for each qualifying year you have. So, if you have 20 years, for example, you’d get 20/35ths of the full rate.
• If you’ve got under 10 years, you usually won’t get any State Pension.

You won’t get any Additional State Pension under the new State Pension rules. You also won’t be able to claim on your spouse or civil partner’s NI contributions. However, there may be exceptions if you’re widowed or divorced.

If you were contracted out of Additional State Pension during your working life – for example, you paid into certain workplace pensions instead – the amount you get under the new State Pension will be reduced. Contact the Pension Service for advice.

If you don’t have enough years to get the full new State Pension, you may be able to pay voluntary NI contributions to increase how much you get. Or you might be able to claim Pension Credit if your income is low.

The basic State Pension

You can get the basic State Pension if you reach your State Pension age before 6 April 2016. This means you’re:

• a woman born before 6 April 1953
• a man born before 6 April 1951.

The full rate for basic State Pension is £137.60 a week for 2021/22. But the amount you get could be more or less than this.

• You need 30 qualifying years or more of NI contributions to get a full basic State Pension.
• If you have less than this, you’ll get part of the full basic Pension rate. This is 1/30th for each qualifying year you have. So if you had 20 years, you’d get 20/30ths of the full amount.
• You’ll usually need at least one year to get any basic State Pension.

If you’re a woman born before 6 April 1950, you’ll need at least 10 years to get any basic State Pension and 39 years to get the full amount. If you have between 10 and 39 years, you’ll get a part rate based on how many years you have.

If you’re a man born before 6 April 1945, you’ll need at least 11 years to get any basic State Pension and 44 years to get the full amount. If you have between 11 and 44 years, you’ll get a part rate based on how many years you have.

If you qualify for Additional State Pension, it’ll be automatically added to your basic State Pension – unless you were contracted out.

You might be able to ‘top up’ your pension by using your spouse or civil partner’s NI contributions, if you’re not able to get a basic State Pension. You won’t be able to do this if you were self-employed.