National Insurance – incomplete years

I won’t go in to details, but basically I’ve struggled with extremely shaky mental health since I was a small child and there have been several points along the way that I could well not have made it through.

I survived on income support for some years, which included NI payments, and I’m now happily married, holding down a job and a home owner. Government Gateway shows the 4 years of ’86-90 as ‘not full’ with a note saying that it’s not now possible to pay in for these years (apparently 6 years is the maximum). I think that I may have been at college (or possibly just too ill).

I have a further 12 years of contributions to make before I can claim my state pension and, apparently, there is no way of now increasing my pension forecast.

Following a rather unfortunate run of heart attacks, I’d quite like to enjoy some form of retirement at some point in the future and was wondering if there’s any way I can top up those 4 years (I suspect not). You can contact HMRC if you know your record to be wrong, but I thought that I’d ask here before spending an hour on hold trying to get through to the HMRC helpline.

The HMRC helpline is actually quite good, pretty quick too.
I had a query & was pleased with the service.
I’d be asking them 1st.

I have a further 12 years of contributions to make before I can claim my state pension and, apparently, there is no way of now increasing my pension forecast.

I don’t quite understand this, you need to make 12 years more NI contributions to hit the min number years necessary to get full pension, so surely those 12 years will increase your final pension? As if you gave up work now, you’d get less than if you contributed for another 12 years.

NB Pretty sure you can’t do anything about those 4 years unless there is a mistake in your record, but AIUI you could retire in less than 12 years and make up the missing years by paying a one off lump sum for each missing year (as long as you don’t leave it too late).

Would 4 years of part missing contributions out of a working lifetime actually make much monetary difference to the pension payment?

The HMRC helpline is actually quite good, pretty quick too.
I had a query & was pleased with the service.

I’ve always been pleased with the service too, but there’s usually been a huge wait on hold to get through.

Anyway, I was in fulltime education for the 4 years concerned and have spoken to the HMRC helpline (quicker to get through than last time) who confirm that NI credits aren’t given whilst in fulltime education and confirm that there’s nothing I can do about paying in now.

I don’t quite understand this, you need to make 12 years more NI contributions to hit the min number years necessary to get full pension, so surely those 12 years will increase your final pension? As if you gave up work now, you’d get less than if you contributed for another 12 years.

I’m afraid that I find all this grown up stuff thoroughly confusing. I was looking at the Pension Forecast page and it states:

You can get your State Pension on xxxx 2034
Your forecast

is not a guarantee and is based on the current law
is based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2022
does not include any increase due to inflation
£xxx is the most you can get
You cannot improve your forecast any more.

I assumed that the estimate would be based on the payment of a further 12 years of NI.

I presume that you’re 55 ? And have made 31 years contributions…with a further 12 to go you will have made 43 yrs contributions, yes ? You need 35 full years contributions for a full state pension which at present is £185.15. I was contracted out for a period of time so despite paying in for 35 yrs….I only have c29 full years contributions. This is an aspect that seems to confuse some who state ‘I’ve paid for 40 yrs but I don’t get the full amount, it’s all wrong!’

If you go on the Govt site and register. It may well state that your forecast is for that full amount but it is based on you paying full contributions for the next x years.
Mine states that if I contributed nothing more, my pension would be c £153 rather than £185.

As stated above, ring them. They are very helpful
0800 731 0181

How many qualifying years does it say you have? You need 35 years to get the full pension, any more than that doesn’t get you any more.

I might be wrong, but I’m inferring from the forecast that you can claim in 2034 that you’ll be 67 in that year, and when it says you can’t increase your forecast any more, that’s because you’ll have 35 or more years by then. That would mean you’d have at least 23 years now; what does your forecast say?

If you are missing some years since 2006, you may be able to top up – see https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

Anyway, I was in fulltime education for the 4 years concerned and have spoken to the HMRC helpline (quicker to get through than last time) who confirm that NI credits aren’t given whilst in fulltime education and confirm that there’s nothing I can do about paying in now.

AFAIK it depends on what type of “full time education” – Higher vs Further and unsure if it’s my age but I got NI credits when at Further Education College (80’s).

I have been paying voluntarily to keep topped up, think I am on 33 qualifying years now so just 2 to go. If you can afford to delay the pension I think it’s a 3.5% uplift.

They did make a mistake on mine which they corrected.

Good luck, staff were super helpfull when I rang.

Just a thought, if you are undershooting the 35 years maybe you can get pension credit, which then opens the door to a whole raft of benefits.

Apparently I have 35 years of full contributions, 12 years to contribute before 5th April 2034 and 4 years where I didn’t contribute enough.

I don’t quite understand what this means if, as folk are saying, I only need 35 years of payments. In any event it sounds as if the 4 missing years are irrelevant.

I don’t quite understand what this means if, as folk are saying, I only need 35 years of payments. In any event it sounds as if the 4 missing years are irrelevant.

Yep.

In my experience, the people on the phone are excellent. The web page that shows your full and missing years can be wildly inaccurate. I’ve phoned up for someone who retired before pension age. They told me what it would cost to buy missing years, then asked if she had any self employed income. I said she co-owns a house that is rented out. “Ooh, that’ll do” he said. You can pay for those years at the lower rate which turned out to be about a quarter of the full rate and the result is she now has a full pension. It took less than 6 months to recoup the payment.

I only need 35 years of payments. In any event it sounds as if the 4 missing years are irrelevant.

Looks like it. The only issue would be if you had a company pension that was “contracted out” – in effect the company opts you out of part of the state pension because you’re getting the company pension, and so your years don’t count as full years. It’s fiendishly complicated to work out how much difference that makes, but the forecast should allow for it.

The easy way to check is to look at the numbers that you put as xxx in your quote – the full state pension this year is £185.15 per week.

If you have 35 qualifying years you are maxed out, sadly you have to keep paying ni for no additional benefit. The rules constantly change as we are all living longer, so bear that in mind. If you were paying voluntarily and had 35 qualifying years, you could stop, but as an employee you have no choice.

☝ It’s true, but as you’re not paying into an investment pot, either individual or a social, the NI payments you make now are paying for todays pensioners income, and the NHS and stuff*. When it’s your turn to draw, the NI contributors will be paying your pension, so it’ll even out.

*actually I’m fairly sure the NI just goes into the massive taxation income account with everything else. Not ringfenced, so it’s paying for all the other types of government expenditure too.

actually I’m fairly sure the NI just goes into the massive taxation income account with everything else. Not ringfenced

We don’t have any ring fenced taxes – bar TV license (if you can call that a tax).

You can make back payments up to 6 yrs I think.

Which is highly annoying as I’ve got one year where I didn’t pay enough from yonks ago.

Best thing to do is log into the government website and you can see what full year’s contributions you’ve made.

Pretty sure you can’t do anything about those 4 years unless there is a mistake in your record

Unless you’ve kids and qualify under the ‘Home responsibilities’ option. Gained me the missing 16 years. Result!

OH was working and getting the child benefit whilst I looked after the kids and worked part-time. Child benefit was passed over to me and bingo16 years of national insurance added.

From experience HMG’s Pension Service will have a different perspective on this. HMRC and the Pension Service calculate contributions differently https://www.gov.uk/contact-pension-service

I don’t those records are accurate for me. It shows one year made no contribution, which was one of my university years. All the others are full contribution, and I definitely opted out and had increased private pension credits for a couple of years in the 90’s.

I definitely opted out and had increased private pension credits for a couple of years in the 90’s.

So far as I know, and based on my own record, the records don’t show whether you were contracted out, only whether you had a full year.

Surely on the opted out years I had no state pension contribution?

No matter really as I’ll have way more than 35 by the time I retire. Just odd that the government records don’t even match my flakey memory from 20+ years ago.

I’ll have way more than 35 by the time I retire

35 years is not a rule for most people, the assumption is that you pay until state-retirement age. Contributions may be contracted-out, i.e. a non-state pension contribution
Contact the Pensions Service

On the opted out years, by definition, you were in a private pension scheme. Looks like you will be maxed out at 35 anyway so the opted out years won’t have added anything.

Bear in mind that if your record shows ‘Full Year’ it does not necessarily mean that the full ‘non contracted out’ contributions have been made. My records show Full Year for each and every year of contribution but several were only full in as much as I paid the required amount having been contracted out….if that makes sense. The only way to really get to the bottom of it is to ring and speak to someone.

Yep, as above the people on the helpline are very good and helpful as well as patient with people who they are helping. Something maybe to help you:

Think about what you want to know and write the questions down before you call.

If you don’t follow their answer, ask again, they are helpful and patient.

HMRC seemed compartmentalized when I called and one call may stray into another departments remit so general and specific finance questions couldn’t be answered by the same person (or, this was the case on my call).

But, overall they are helpful.

Interested that they’d let you pay that far back. I had one year where I was in industry placement from uni and was about 150 quid short that I just didn’t have from a full years contribution. I finished uni, moved out of home into a low paying job, and by the time I’d cleared student debt etc they said it was now too late to pay the remainder. Feel like if that’s the case I should have got the rest of the money back!

I’m resurrecting this thread as I read this morning that you can (until the end of July) make contributions to catch up with missing years of NI payments up to 10 years ago.
I have 6 years of missing contributions as I was living in Spain. I could make up for these now, but not sure if it’s worth it as I may get to 35 years contribution anyway (12 years to go).
I really wouldn’t want to pay extra now and then end up with more than 35 years, but on the other hand it would give me flexibility later on to retire with full pension if I wanted to sod off to Spain again.

EDIT. sorry it’s an EXTRA 10 years back that you can make up for – back to 2006/07

This might be a good place to ask…

I was contracted out for many years. My current forecast is £145 per week, despite the site saying I have 37 years of full contributions. However, it also says I have gaps in my record. Some years (recent ones, I’ve not been working) it would be £800 to fill a gap. Other years, it might only be £49 to fill a gap. Does it make sense to fill many small gaps over one big one or is it the total amount contributed that counts?

Contracting out won’t affect your forecast as it was only contracting you out of the potential extra (SERPS) you could have got before this was scrapped in about 2016.
Can’t quite see how you’re not on full allocation with 37 qualifying years, you only need 35!

Can’t quite see how you’re not on full allocation with 37 qualifying years, you only need 35!

Quite!

There was a piece on BBC’s moneybox program about this today, you could listen back to it (radio 4). The government has just extended the deadline for top up payments for past NI gaps to July. They said there’s a 3 step process to checking if you need to top up to get the full state pension, and then actually figuring out if it’s worth doing, and how to do it. The first step was a website bit and simple enough I think, after that it involved humans.

Martin Lewis says it’s worth topping up years where you are only a bit short. You need to get it done before the new deadline but relatively small payments now to boost your total seem like a really good investment.

Ref earlier although I don’t get why you’re not already on full, you just need 35 qualifying years. So if I was needing to top up I’d work out how many extra years I need (might be none if you are continuing to work) and then top up the cheapest available years.

@scotroutes

“Other years, it might only be £49 to fill a gap. Does it make sense to fill many small gaps over one big one”

In short yes. However, IANOFA so have a listen to the Martin Lewis Podcast on this;How to turn £800 into £5,500 – Part 2

NB you don’t need to listen to part one as he replays it in Part 2 which was recoded about 6 month after part 1.

You probably know who Martin Lewis is, but if not, he is not trying to sell you anything and sees himself (accurately IMHO) as a consumer champion. The link is a good short description of what you need to know and what you need to do.

The deadline for a significant reduction in how many years you can go back is looming (3’ish weeks as I type this) so it is well worth getting to grips with this now

You can make back payments up to 6 yrs I think.

Which is highly annoying as I’ve got one year where I didn’t pay enough from yonks ago.

Until April 6, you can go back much further to complete part-years. I have two from the mid-2010s, but I can’t get through to the various helplines to get my 18 digit whatever to pay them….

I’ve got some missing years in the late 90s where I was a student.
I take it I can’t top them up now?

@martinhutch

but I can’t get through to the various helplines to get my 18 digit whatever to pay them….

This seems to be a common complaint at the moment. However, some people are reporting that they get straight through by ringing at ‘odd’ times of the day. I don’t know what those times are though :-/

@kayak23

I’ve got some missing years in the late 90s where I was a student.
I take it I can’t top them up now?

Sadly not, the official statement on the .gov.uk site is; “gaps between tax years April 2006 and April 2016”

I’ve got some missing years in the late 90s where I was a student.
I take it I can’t top them up now?

It depends, I guess, I’ve got a missing year from when I was in education so I looked into this again recently..

I’ve got one year I can’t top up, as it was decades ago but a more recent ‘partial’ year that I can top up for about £400. I’m currently unsure whether it’s worth bothering with.

But in my particular circumstaces, I’m 44, and only need another 9 years contribution, I think, so theoreticaly I should be full by the time I reach 69 years old or whatever the age for state pension is, so theres probbably little point in me paying ‘top-up’ fees at this time.

But I would like to have the option of early retirement in terms of state pension, if you know what I mean, as I don’t plan on working to death but also a full state pension, for what it is, is I guess a nice thing to have.

but I can’t get through to the various helplines to get my 18 digit whatever to pay them….

Yep, I tried to ring the other week… gave up after 50 mins on hold. If you do get through they shuould be able to provide you with a code (the codes I think are specific to specific tax years) so if you are trying to top up a year or two here and there, you’ll need unique codes for the individual top up payments for specific short years.

HMRC is a bloody mess at the moment, so don’t delete any emails and save any letters.