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When will I get my state pension? Check the UK retirement age
State pension age is set to change. Check when you qualify with our calculator, plus the pros and cons of deferring
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The state pension can provide an important boost to your retirement income, but when will you receive it?
Weekly state pension payments for those who receive the full new state pension are set to rise to from £203.85 to £221.20 in April, making it worth more than £11,500 per year.
That is a sizeable sum to look forward to on top of your own personal pension savings or other retirement income such as a buy-to-let portfolio.
But as people live longer, the cost of providing the state pension is getting more expensive and many may wonder if it will still be around by the time they hit retirement age.
There are already plans to increase the state pension age, but if you are wondering when you will be eligible to start receiving payments, Telegraph Money has created a calculator that reveals the exact date you could get yours.
In this guide we will cover:
- When will I get my state pension?
- What is the average retirement age in the UK?
- How do you qualify for the state pension?
- What if I want to retire earlier?
- How to check you’re getting paid the right amount
When will I get my state pension?
While private pension savings, such as a self-invested personal pension or workplace schemes, can be accessed from age 55 – rising to 57 from 2028 – you need to wait longer for state pension payments.
The age at which you start to draw your state pension is currently 66.
There used to be a separate state pension age for women and for men, however the 1995 Pension Act legislated for the age to be equalised at 65 for both. This was phased in over a number of years, ending in 2018.
The age rose to 66 between 2018 and 2020 and is due to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028.
The age rises will be phased in, which means there will be periods when the retirement age is 66 years and between one and 11 months. This is where our calculator comes in useful – simply enter your date of birth below and it will tell you when you will be eligible, assuming the payments haven’t changed by then.
Anyone born after March 5, 1961 aged 62 years old or younger today won’t be allowed to access their state pension until they’re at least 67.
As it currently stands, the state pension age is due to rise to 68 between 2044 and 2046.
This shift to age 68 was recently reviewed, with many speculating the Government would bring it forward to 2035. This would have affected people born between 1968 and 1979.
However, as life expectancy is growing at a slower rate than first estimated, the Government has opted to keep the current timetable as it is. It’s expected that this will be reviewed again after the general election.
What is the average retirement age in the UK?
There is no longer a default retirement age in the UK, so if you can afford to retire early you don’t have to wait until you qualify for the state pension.
Equally, you may choose to continue working beyond state pension age – and you can either choose to receive your state pension payments while you’re working, or defer them until you decide to retire.
That being said, many people time their retirement around when they start receiving the state pension, as the payments help to replace the income they’ll lose by stopping work.
Retirement age for men
The state pension age for men was age 65 from 1948 to 2010, but was then gradually increased to the currently level of 66 by the end of 2020.
Many are opting to retire before reaching state pension age. Government figures show that in 2023, the average age that a man retired – described as leaving the labour market – was 65.3 years.
Retirement age for women
The average retirement age for women is currently 64, government data shows.
Women have seen big pension changes in recent years. From 1948 until 2010, the state pension or UK retirement age for women was 60.
The government announced in 2010 that women’s state pension age would be increased to match men’s and would rise in stages to 65 between April 2010 and April 2020.
But these reforms were then sped up with a new deadline of December 2018 and it then gradually increased to 66 by October 2020.
This has prompted complaints from hundreds of thousands of women, known as the WASPI campaign, that the changes were badly communicated and they have been left poorer in retirement.
How do you qualify for the state pension?
Your state pension entitlement is based on your national insurance (NI) contributions.
Credits are built up during your working life by paying NI tax and also if get payments such as child benefit.
Before 2016, anyone who reached the UK retirement age would have got the basic state pension.
Men needed 30 qualifying years of NI payments if were born between 1945 and 1951 and 44 qualifying years if were born before 1945 to get the full amount.
Women needed 30 qualifying years if born between 1950 and 1953 and 39 qualifying years if born before 1950.
Since 2016, both men and women reaching state pension age need at least 35 full years of recorded NI to get the full amount.
If you have contributed less but have at least 10 years’ worth of contributions, then you’ll get a smaller state pension.
There is the option of plugging the contribution gaps by paying voluntary ‘Class 3’ NI contributions to boost your state pension payments.
It does currently cost £907 to add an extra year of voluntary contributions – though partial years are cheaper. For that amount you’ll get an extra £5.82 added to your weekly state pension. That’s £302 per year, or £6,052 over a 20-year retirement.
You could break even within a few years: paying an extra year of voluntary contributions means that as long as you live at least three years after state pension age you’ll get your money back.
It’s especially good value when you think that the state pension rises each year, becoming even more valuable over time.
Generally, voluntary contributions are limited to only the previous six tax years, but there is currently a temporary window open until April 2025 allowing people to buy NI credits to fill in any gaps between tax years April 2006 to April 2016.
You can check your National Insurance record here: https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record – you will need a Government Gateway user ID and password.
What if I want to retire earlier?
There is nothing stopping you from retiring earlier, but you need to ensure you can afford it.
The latest figures from the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association shows that an income of £41,300 per year is needed for a comfortable retirement.
You need to be confident your finances can stretch that far, and possibly higher if you have other costs, without getting a regular salary.
“The challenge for those who want to retire before they receive their state pension is whether they have adequate savings in place to fund a life without unearned income,” said Alice Haine, personal finance analyst at Evelyn Partners.
“Studies have found that many people are simply not saving enough to fund the level of lifestyle they want in retirement and the length of the retirement they want.”
Ms Haine said saving independently for retirement is key and funds can come from multiple sources, such as property, Isa savings, an annuity, a private pension and a state pension.
“Those who want to retire before the state pension age need to make sure their retirement fund – whatever the source – is adequate to fill that gap between retiring and receiving the state pension,” she said.
“The last thing any retiree wants is to give up work, splurge all their retirement savings and then be forced back into work.”
Working after state pension age
It is possible to keep working even after you receive the state pension, but you won’t be building up any more NI credits towards the payments once you reach state pension age.
“You can choose to work full time or phase into retirement through part-time work,” said Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“It’s also not a one-way street. Once retired you can always return to work if you feel you need or want to. If you find you don’t need your state pension while you are working then you can opt to stop receiving it for a period of time in return for receiving a higher amount later on. However, you can only do this once.”
Another key thing to be aware of is that if you have already flexibly accessed your private pension through drawdown, if you want to continue contributing then you will only be able to put in up to £10,000 per year under the Money Purchase Annual Allowance, rather than the current £60,000.
Retiring vs staying in work
Retiring can give you more time to enjoy your hard-earned pension savings. It is worth planning how much you need in your pension and how best to access it so your fund doesn’t run dry too soon.
There are benefits to working for a bit longer and not taking your state pension, though.
If you continue to work past state pension age, or perhaps have alternative means of income and don’t feel you “need” the extra cash, then you might want to hold off receiving your pension payments for a couple of years. This is known as deferring your state pension.
Delaying or deferring state pension payments can be tax efficient, particularly if you’re still working and state pension income would take you into a higher tax bracket.
It also means you’ll be paid more when you come to claim your payments, as long as you live long enough to enjoy it.
To receive an increase, people must defer for at least nine weeks, after that their state pension rises by about 1pc for every nine weeks deferred, that is equivalent to just under 5.8pc for every year.
For example, someone set to receive £203.85 a week from the full new state pension who then defers for 52 weeks will receive an extra £11.82 a week when they eventually claim the payment. If there is an annual increase in the state pension during the period they defer, then the amount they receive could be even bigger.
If you want to carry on working, it might make sense to defer a state pension to lower the tax burden – particularly for higher taxpayers.
There are risks to deferring, Ms Haine warned.
“Someone delaying the pension will receive more money further down the line, but it will still take time to make up for the state pension they could have added to their bank balance if they had claimed the amount straightaway – so those in poor health might want to consider this carefully,” she said.
“Another consideration is that any extra payments you get from deferring could be taxed, or taxed more heavily, as it might tip your income over the personal allowance threshold or into a higher tax band. “
How to check you’re getting paid the right amount
Gauging how much state pension you should be getting paid can be tricky. The widely publicised figures detail the “full” amount, but there are various reasons why you might get more or less than this.
Variations can be down to your National Insurance record, the date at which you retired (this will dictate whether or not you receive the “new” state pension amount), as well as other variables such as whether you “contracted out”, whether you’re receiving a spouse’s state pension payments, and whether you started receiving state pension payments as soon as you became eligible for them.
This complication has meant that thousands of people are being underpaid the state pension each year without even knowing it. Government errors that have come to light over the past few years meant that in 2022 alone more than £500m in retirement income went unpaid.
While the Government is working to rectify some of these errors, the process of identifying those who are owed money and getting the money to them has been very slow. Therefore, it’s worth taking steps to find out how much you should be receiving, and what to do if it turns out you’re not being paid as much as you should.