UK State Pension Guide (2026/27)

The State Pension is the foundation of most UK retirement income. This page covers the full mechanics for 2026/27: the new State Pension full rate of £241.30 a week, the 35 qualifying NI years needed, the triple lock uprating rule, State Pension Age (SPA) currently transitioning from 66 to 67, the Class 3 voluntary contribution route to fill NI gaps (including the extended window for years 2006-07 to 2017-18 that closed on 5 April 2025), how deferral works, and the tax treatment of pension income. The State Pension rates on this page are read from the DWP "Benefit and pension rates" tables held in our tax data.

1. Overview

The State Pension is the bedrock of UK retirement income. It is a contributory, non-means-tested benefit paid weekly from State Pension Age (SPA) until death, funded out of current National Insurance receipts under a pay-as-you-go model rather than from any accumulated personal fund. For 2026/27 the full new State Pension is £241.30 a week (£12,547.60 over 52 weeks), and the full basic State Pension (for people who reached SPA before 6 April 2016) is £184.90 a week (£9,614.80 over 52 weeks). Both figures rise each April under the triple lock.

For most retirees it sits alongside private pensions, Individual Savings Account (ISA) savings and earnings. The State Pension is taxable income but does not have tax withheld at source - HMRC instead collects the tax through PAYE on private pensions or earnings, or through Self Assessment. The eligibility mechanism is the National Insurance record: 35 qualifying years gets the full new rate for a record that started after April 2016, 10 is the minimum, and in the simplest case anyone between gets a proportion. For modelling your own entitlement use the State Pension calculator, which applies the same DWP-published rates as this page.

2. New State Pension vs Old State Pension

The defining boundary in UK State Pension policy is 6 April 2016. Anyone who reached SPA before that date is on the old system; anyone reaching SPA on or after is on the new single-tier system. The two regimes differ structurally in design, qualifying years and additional-pension treatment.

The old State Pension (pre-6 April 2016). The old system had two layers. The basic State Pension provided a flat-rate amount based on 30 qualifying NI years, paying £184.90 a week at the full rate for 2026/27. Bolted on top was the additional State Pension - originally SERPS (1978-2002), then the State Second Pension or S2P (2002-2016) - which paid extra on top of the basic rate based on a complex formula tied to your earnings history. People could "contract out" of SERPS / S2P in exchange for paying reduced NI contributions and accruing equivalent rights in a private pension instead. The result was a sprawling patchwork: two people with identical work histories could retire with materially different State Pensions purely because of contracting-out choices and SERPS / S2P accrual rates.

The new State Pension (from 6 April 2016). The new single-tier State Pension replaced both layers with a single flat-rate payment - £241.30 a week at the full rate - based on 35 qualifying NI years with a 10-year minimum. There is no additional State Pension. SERPS / S2P accrual that pre-dates the cutover is preserved via a "starting amount" calculation: at 6 April 2016 the DWP calculated what each person would have received under the old rules and compared it with the new rules; the higher of the two became your starting amount. Anyone whose starting amount exceeded the new full rate has the excess as a "Protected Payment" that uprates only by CPI (not the full triple lock). The new regime also re-calibrated NI credits for contracted-out years. For anyone now in their 50s or older the old contracting-out history still affects the calculation - the gov.uk State Pension forecast tool resolves the arithmetic on a personal basis.

Which system applies to me? If you were born on or after 6 April 1951 (men) or 6 April 1953 (women) you are under the new system. If you were born earlier you are under the old system. The hard date cutoff applies regardless of when you actually claim - someone born in March 1953 who defers claiming for ten years is still on the old basic State Pension. The two systems are not interchangeable. For detailed pension-planning context across private and State Pensions see the pension comparison guide and the pension tax relief guide.

3. New State Pension 2026/27 figure

For the 2026/27 tax year the full new State Pension is £241.30 a week, equivalent to £12,547.60 a year on a 52-week basis (DWP "Benefit and pension rates"). That is a 4.8% rise on the £230.25 a week that applied during 2025/26.

Pro-rating below 35 years. In the simplest case (a record with no contracting out before 2016) anyone with between 10 and 35 qualifying years receives years / 35 times the full rate. A claimant with 28 qualifying years gets 28/35 of £241.30 = £193.04 a week (£10,038.08 a year). One with 20 qualifying years gets 20/35 = £137.89 a week (£7,170.06 a year). The minimum 10-year threshold is a hard cliff: below that no new State Pension is payable, though Pension Credit may apply.

Basic State Pension 2026/27. For the cohort still under the old system, the full basic State Pension is £184.90 a week (£9,614.80 over 52 weeks) with 30 qualifying years, plus any additional State Pension (SERPS / S2P) earned before 6 April 2016 and any Graduated Retirement Benefit from the pre-1975 era. The basic State Pension also uprates by the triple lock; the additional State Pension uprates by CPI only.

Forecast cross-check. The published full rate is the legal maximum. Your personal new State Pension may be higher or lower depending on contracting-out adjustments, Protected Payment from pre-2016 SERPS / S2P accrual, and any Class 3 voluntary contributions paid to fill gaps. The only authoritative number is the one shown in your gov.uk State Pension forecast at gov.uk/check-state-pension-forecast - that is the figure the DWP will actually pay.

4. NI qualifying years

A qualifying year is a tax year in which you either paid sufficient National Insurance contributions or were credited with them. The route to qualifying differs by NI class.

a. Class 1: Employed

Employees pay Class 1 NI through PAYE. A tax year counts as qualifying if your earnings reached the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) for the year, which is £6,708 a year (£129 a week) in 2026/27. Crucially, earnings between the LEL and the Primary Threshold (£12,570 a year) do not actually incur NI payment but do count as "credited" contributions - so a worker on £7,000 a year still earns a qualifying year despite paying no NI in cash. Above the Primary Threshold the main rate (8% on the band up to £50,270, 2% above) applies and the year continues to qualify. Multiple part-time jobs are tested separately per employment, so two jobs each at £6,000 a year do not aggregate into a qualifying year - this is one of the more common NI-record gaps for low-paid multi-job workers.

b. Class 2: Self-employed

Self-employed traders pay Class 2 NI. From April 2024 the compulsory Class 2 charge was abolished for anyone with profits above the Small Profits Threshold (SPT) of £7,105 a year in 2026/27 - they are treated as having paid Class 2 and earn a qualifying year automatically without any cash payment. There is no band below the SPT that still earns credits automatically - below £7,105 nothing is credited and a qualifying year has to be bought. Traders with profits under the SPT (or who choose not to register at all) can pay voluntary Class 2 at £3.65 a week in 2026/27 (£189.80 a year for a full qualifying year) - significantly cheaper than Class 3. Voluntary Class 2 is the cheapest route to a qualifying year for any UK self-employed person below the SPT, including freelancers with a side income beneath their day-job earnings.

c. Class 3: Voluntary

Class 3 is the catch-all voluntary contribution used to fill NI gaps. The rate is £18.40 a week in 2026/27, or £956.80 for a full year (52 weeks). Class 3 contributions can fill gaps from the previous six tax years (the extended window for years 2006-07 onwards closed on 5 April 2025 - see section 8). A Class 3 year that counts towards your forecast adds 1/35 of the full new State Pension: £241.30 / 35 = about £6.89 a week, or £358.50 over 52 weeks (multiplied before rounding). The cash recovery period is £956.80 / £358.50 = about 2.7 years of receiving the pension, before Income Tax and ignoring uprating.

d. NI Credits

Several life circumstances automatically award NI credits at Class 3 equivalent without requiring any cash payment. The main categories:

• Child Benefit recipient for a child under 12: automatic Class 3 credits.
• Carer's Allowance recipient or Carer's Credit (20+ hours / week caring): Class 3 credits.
• Universal Credit recipient (working or not): Class 3 credits.
• Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance: Class 1 credits.
• Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity / Paternity / Adoption Pay: credited as if working.
• On a government-approved training course aged 18-25: Class 1 credits.
• HM Forces spouse / civil partner accompanying overseas: Class 1 credits.

The most common missed credit is the Child Benefit one - if a higher-earning parent claims while the lower-earning partner provides childcare, the lower-earning partner loses years of NI credit. The fix is to file Form CF411A to transfer the credit retrospectively, or to swap the Child Benefit claimant going forwards.

5. Triple lock

The triple lock is the annual uprating rule for both the new State Pension full rate and the old basic State Pension. Each April the rate increases by whichever is the highest of:

• CPI inflation in the September immediately preceding the new tax year.
• Average weekly earnings (AWE) growth over the May-July period of the previous calendar year, measured by ONS.
• 2.5% floor.

The triple lock was introduced in 2010 by the Coalition government with the explicit policy aim of restoring State Pension as a share of average earnings, which had eroded since the 1980s when basic State Pension was switched to RPI uprating only. The earnings-link element was the lever that did the work: in years where wages grow faster than prices, the State Pension keeps pace with working-age living standards rather than falling behind.

The 2022 suspension. The triple lock was partly suspended for the 2022/23 tax year. The reason was the post-pandemic earnings distortion: AWE growth in May-July 2021 was measured at over 8% because the comparator (May-July 2020) had been depressed by furlough. Applying that as the uprate would have produced an 8%+ State Pension rise driven entirely by base-period effects rather than real earnings growth, so Parliament legislated a one-year override using the higher of CPI or 2.5% only. The earnings limb was restored for the 2023/24 uprating and has applied normally since.

Recent uprates. 2022/23 used 3.1% (CPI September 2021 - 2.5% floor would have been lower). 2023/24 used 10.1% (CPI September 2022, in the post-Ukraine inflation spike). 2024/25 used 8.5% (AWE May-July 2023). 2025/26 used 4.1% (AWE May-July 2024). For 2026/27 the full new State Pension rose 4.8%, from £230.25 to £241.30 a week; Budget 2025 (section 5.10) says the April 2026 increase of 4.8% was in line with earnings growth. The cumulative effect of the triple lock since 2010 has lifted the State Pension materially above where pure earnings or pure CPI indexation would have placed it.

Political risk. Both the IFS and OBR have flagged that the triple lock is not sustainable indefinitely because of the ratchet effect: in any year where one of the three measures spikes (typically AWE recovering from a downturn, or a CPI inflation shock), the State Pension ratchets up and never falls back. Successive governments have committed to the triple lock through 2029/30. What happens beyond that is genuinely uncertain - the Resolution Foundation and IFS have both proposed alternative "smoothed earnings link" formulae that would deliver similar long-run generosity at lower fiscal volatility.

6. State Pension Age timetable

State Pension Age (SPA) is the age at which you can first claim the State Pension. It is set by legislation and has risen materially over the last 15 years. The rise from 66 to 67 is under way, and a rise to 68 is in current law.

Before the current rise. Everyone who reached SPA before 6 May 2026 did so at 66. The equalisation of men's and women's SPA at 65 happened in November 2018, then both rose together to 66 between December 2018 and October 2020. The female SPA rise from 60 to 65 was legislated by the Pensions Act 1995 and accelerated by the Pensions Act 2011 - this was the basis of the WASPI campaign from women born in the 1950s who argued they had inadequate notice. Two WASPI judicial reviews have been settled or dismissed; the campaign for compensation is ongoing.

SPA is rising from 66 to 67, from 6 May 2026. Under the Pensions Act 2014 (s.26), anyone born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961 reaches SPA at 66 plus between 1 and 11 months, one month more for each later birth month, so the first of them reached SPA on 6 May 2026. Anyone born after 5 March 1961 reaches SPA at 67, the first of them in March 2028. The gov.uk State Pension age calculator returns the exact date for any date of birth.

Further rise from 67 to 68, from May 2044 to March 2046. Under current law (Pensions Act 1995 Schedule 4, as amended by the Pensions Act 2007) people born between 6 April 1977 and 5 April 1978 reach SPA on dates from 6 May 2044 to 6 March 2046, and anyone born after 5 April 1978 reaches it at 68. The Pensions Act 2014 (s.27) requires the Secretary of State to review the rules about pensionable age at least every six years, having regard to life expectancy and other factors. The third review was launched on 21 July 2025 with an independent report by Dr Suzy Morrissey, so the timetable after 2028 could change. Check your own date on gov.uk before planning around it.

Why this matters operationally. Claiming before your personal SPA is impossible; the State Pension simply does not exist for you yet. The difference between SPA 66 and SPA 67 is one year of State Pension income that anyone affected has to bridge from other sources - private pension drawdown, ISA withdrawals, earnings, or accepting reduced expenditure. The 67 to 68 rise will affect many readers of this page directly. For pension-side bridging mechanics see the pension drawdown calculator.

7. Deferral mechanics

The State Pension is not paid automatically. You have to claim it (or deliberately defer it) when you reach your personal SPA. If you defer, the eventual weekly payment is uplifted to compensate for the missed years of income.

New State Pension deferral. Under the new regime (SPA reached on or after 6 April 2016) you get a 1% uplift for every 9 weeks of deferral (one-ninth of 1% for each whole week, once you have deferred at least 9 weeks). Across a full year that is just under 5.8% (52/9 = 5.78 increments of 1%), and it builds up in a straight line: each further 9 weeks adds another 1% of the weekly rate. Once you claim, the extra amount usually rises each year with the Consumer Price Index, not the triple lock, and it does not rise for some people who live abroad (GOV.UK). See how to defer your State Pension for the steps and a break-even example. There is no lump-sum option under the new system - the uplift is delivered exclusively as higher weekly payments for life.

Old basic State Pension deferral. Under the old regime the deferral rate was 1% per 5 weeks (10.4% a year), and you had the option of taking a one-off lump sum instead of the weekly uplift. Both options were significantly more generous than the new-system rates and were a deliberate target for retrenchment in the 2014 reforms. Anyone who has already deferred under the old system keeps the old rate on the deferred slice.

Break-even arithmetic. A new-system pensioner deferring for one full year (52 weeks) forgoes one year of payment (£12,547.60 at the full 2026/27 rate) in exchange for an uplift of 52/9 = 5.78% on £241.30 a week: £13.94 a week, or £724.97 a year. The cash break-even is £12,547.60 / £724.97 = about 17.3 years of receiving the higher pension, ignoring tax, uprating (the extra usually rises with CPI, the full rate with the triple lock) and the value of having the money sooner. It suits people who do not need the income at SPA and expect a long retirement.

8. Filling NI gaps via Class 3

Class 3 voluntary contributions are the standard mechanism for filling gaps in your NI record to reach 35 qualifying years. The cost in 2026/27 is £18.40 a week or £956.80 for a full qualifying year.

Step 1: check your NI record. Log into your gov.uk personal tax account and open the National Insurance record summary. It lists every tax year since you started paying NI, whether each year qualifies in full, qualifies partially or has a gap, and the cost (if any) to fill the gap. The same screen reports your gov.uk State Pension forecast - the projected weekly amount at your SPA. Compare the forecast with the £241.30 full rate to see whether filling gaps will move the needle.

Step 2: identify worthwhile years. Each filled year that counts adds 1/35 of the full new State Pension = about £6.89 a week / £358.50 a year (calculated before rounding). The break-even point at £956.80 cost is about 2.7 years of receiving the pension; every further year of receipt adds another £358.50 before tax. There is no point filling years if you already have 35 qualifying years or are projected to reach 35 through your remaining working life - extra years do not add to the weekly amount.

Step 3: respect the deadlines.

• Standard six-year window. You can pay Class 3 for any of the previous six tax years (in 2026/27, back to 2020/21; each year's deadline is 5 April six years after it ends).
• Extended window for 2006-07 to 2017-18 has closed. That transitional window closed on 5 April 2025 (Social Security (Contributions) (Amendment No. 4) Regulations 2023). Only the standard six-year rule now applies, under which 2018-19 also closed on 5 April 2025 and 2019-20 on 5 April 2026.
• Which rate you pay. You usually pay the rate in force when you make the contribution. Class 3 for the previous two tax years is charged at the original rate for those years; older years are charged at the 2026/27 rate (gov.uk voluntary National Insurance rates).

Step 4: confirm the years will count. Not every gap is worth filling. People who reached SPA close to April 2016 often have a "starting amount" calculation under the new State Pension transitional rules where buying back pre-2016 years does not increase the final figure because the starting amount was already at or above the new full rate. Before paying anything, ring the Future Pension Centre on 0800 731 0175 to confirm that the specific year you intend to buy will increase your forecast - this is a free, authoritative check and avoids paying £956.80 for no benefit.

Step 5: paying. Once confirmed, you can pay online through the Check your State Pension forecast service, by online or telephone bank transfer, by Direct Debit, at your bank or building society, or by cheque. gov.uk says payments through the forecast service can take up to 5 working days to update your record and other methods up to 8 weeks. The bank details and reference format are on gov.uk/pay-voluntary-class-3-national-insurance. Keep the payment confirmation in case the record does not update.

Worked break-even example. Sarah, 50, checks her gov.uk forecast. With the work she has planned she expects 33 qualifying years, 2 short of 35, and her record shows 2 gap years inside the last six tax years. To keep the arithmetic simple, assume no contracting out before 2016, so her forecast is 33/35 x £241.30 = £227.51 a week. She buys the 2 gap years at £956.80 each = £1,913.60 (at the 2026/27 rate; a gap in either of the previous two tax years is charged at that year's original rate). If both years count, her forecast rises to the full £241.30 a week. The uplift is 2/35 x £241.30 = £13.79 a week, or £717.01 a year over 52 weeks. Recovery period: £1,913.60 / £717.01 = about 2.7 years of receiving the pension. As an illustration only, at today's rates with no uprating and no discounting, 20 years of receipt would pay her 20 x £717.01 = £14,340 extra, £12,427 more than she paid. The State Pension is taxable: if her other pension income already uses her Personal Allowance and the extra falls in the basic-rate band, Income Tax at 20% leaves £11,472, which is £9,558 more than she paid. How many years she actually draws the pension is unknown; the recovery period is the firmer number.

9. Pension forecast tool

The gov.uk State Pension forecast at gov.uk/check-state-pension is the authoritative tool for checking your personal entitlement. It pulls live data from HMRC's NI record system and DWP's State Pension calculation engine, so the figure it returns is exactly what you will receive at SPA on current record (subject to triple-lock uprating each year between now and then).

What it shows. Your current accrued weekly amount, your forecast at SPA assuming you continue accruing qualifying years at the current pace, the highest you can reach by paying voluntary Class 3 contributions, and a year-by-year breakdown of every NI year since you started paying. Each year is marked as a full qualifying year, a part year, a non-qualifying gap, or a year that cannot be filled (typically because the deadline has passed). The cost of each fillable gap is shown alongside.

Access. You need to sign in to use the online service, and gov.uk says you will be told when you sign in if you need to prove your identity, which normally means photo ID such as a passport or driving licence. You can also check your forecast in the HMRC app. If you will reach State Pension age in more than 30 days, you can instead ask the Future Pension Centre (0800 731 0175) or send form BR19 by post, and the forecast is posted to you; gov.uk says applying online is the quickest way.

Run our calculator too. The SalaryTax State Pension calculator applies the same 2026/27 DWP rates and is useful for scenario testing - what does my pension look like if I retire with 30 vs 35 vs 38 qualifying years, on either the new or the old scheme. It is not personalised to your NI record (so cannot tell you whether you have hidden gaps), but it gives you the same arithmetic the DWP uses for the headline figure.

10. Specialist cases

Several common situations sit outside the standard qualifying-years arithmetic. Worth flagging:

a. Married women's reduced rate

Before 1977 married women could opt to pay a reduced NI rate (the so-called "small stamp"), in exchange for waiving their own State Pension entitlement and relying on their husband's record instead. This option was closed to new entrants from April 1977 but anyone who had elected the small stamp before then continued under it until they chose to revoke or stopped working. Many women now reaching SPA have a low NI record because of this election. Under the old basic State Pension they can claim a married woman's rate (60% of the basic rate) based on their husband's NI record. Under the new State Pension a small transitional add-on exists for women in this group, but the rules are intricate - the Future Pension Centre is the right port of call.

b. Inheriting from a spouse

Under the old system a surviving spouse or civil partner could use the deceased's NI record to substitute or top up their own basic State Pension. They can inherit up to 50% of the deceased's State Second Pension. For SERPS, the limit is up to 100% if the deceased died before 6 October 2002; otherwise it depends on the deceased's date of birth, from 100% (men born on or before 5 October 1937, women on or before 5 October 1942) down to 50% (men born on or after 6 October 1945, women on or after 6 July 1950) (gov.uk Additional State Pension: inheriting). Under the new system the inheritance rules are narrower: a surviving spouse can inherit at most 50% of any Protected Payment (the slice of the starting amount above the new full rate) but cannot inherit the new State Pension itself - it remains individual. Where one spouse is on the old system and the other on the new, complex transitional rules apply; the DWP "State Pension if you're widowed" guidance is the canonical reference.

c. Divorce and pension sharing

Divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership creates a pension-sharing right over private pensions and over any Additional State Pension (SERPS / S2P) accrued by the other party. The new basic State Pension entitlement is not shareable - it is calculated solely on each individual's own NI record. Pension-sharing orders are made by the court at the time of the divorce and operate via a percentage debit from one party's record and a credit to the other's. They are irreversible.

d. Pension Credit

Pension Credit is a means-tested top-up benefit for low-income pensioners, separate from the State Pension itself. Its Guarantee Credit tops up weekly income to £238 if you are single or £363.25 for a couple (gov.uk Pension Credit, checked October 2026). You have to claim it. Getting Pension Credit can also open up Housing Benefit if you rent, a Council Tax Reduction, Cold Weather Payments, the Warm Home Discount and a free TV licence if you are 75 or over. Anyone receiving a pro-rated State Pension (fewer than 35 qualifying years) is exactly the group most likely to be eligible.

11. Pension forecast worked example

The setup. Maya, 48, has worked since her early twenties with career breaks after each of her two children. Her gov.uk NI record shows 22 qualifying years from employment and 6 from Child Benefit credits: 28 in total. Assuming no contracting out before 2016, her forecast on her current record is 28/35 x £241.30 = £193.04 a week. Some of her career-break years are gaps, but they are more than six tax years ago, so they can no longer be filled.

Option A: keep working. Each further year of earnings at or above the Lower Earnings Limit is another qualifying year, so 7 more years of work take her to 35 and the full £241.30 a week (at 2026/27 rates). Years beyond 35 add nothing. Extra cost: £0.

Option B: stop paid work in two years and fill the rest with Class 3. She would stop at 30 years, a forecast of 30/35 x £241.30 = £206.83 a week, 5 years short. Each later year can be bought with Class 3 within the six-year window: 5 x £956.80 = £4,784.00 at the 2026/27 rate (the actual bill depends on when she pays: a year paid within the next two tax years is charged at that year's own rate, a year paid later at the rate in force when she pays). That adds 5/35 x £241.30 = £34.47 a week, or £1,792.51 a year, so the cost is recovered after about 2.7 years of receiving the pension.

Option C: freelance part-time with profits below the Small Profits Threshold. Instead of Class 3 she could pay voluntary Class 2 for the same 5 years at £3.65 a week: 5 x £189.80 = £949.00 at the 2026/27 rate, for the same £34.47 a week uplift.

Lesson. The forecast tool and the Future Pension Centre between them dictate whether voluntary contributions are worthwhile - never pay Class 3 without first confirming the year will count. People in their 40s and 50s who plan to keep working are usually best served by doing nothing; people considering early retirement or career change should plan their NI record alongside their financial retirement plan.

12. Tax treatment of State Pension

The State Pension is taxable income. It uses up your Personal Allowance and then falls into the basic, higher and additional-rate Income Tax bands like any other pension income or earnings. National Insurance is NOT payable on the State Pension, and gov.uk says you do not pay National Insurance if you work past State Pension age.

HMRC does not withhold tax at source from the State Pension itself. The DWP pays the gross weekly amount into your bank account. The tax owed is recovered through one of two routes. If you also receive a private pension or have part-time earnings paid through PAYE, HMRC reduces your tax code on that source by the State Pension amount, so the private-pension or salary PAYE deduction includes Income Tax on the State Pension. If your only income is the State Pension, or it is paid alongside untaxed income (rental profits, dividends, foreign pensions), HMRC collects the tax via Self Assessment.

Personal Allowance interaction. The Personal Allowance in 2026/27 is £12,570. The full new State Pension over 52 weeks is £12,547.60 - £22.40 below the Personal Allowance. A pensioner whose only income is the full new State Pension therefore pays no Income Tax. Add any private pension, rental income or earnings on top and the State Pension uses the first £12,547.60 of the allowance, with other income taxed from there, at the basic rate up to £50,270.

The Personal Allowance freeze trap. The Personal Allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021/22 and is currently scheduled to remain frozen through 2030/31. Meanwhile the triple lock has lifted the full new State Pension from £203.85 a week in 2023/24 to £241.30 in 2026/27, an increase of 18.4%. Over 52 weeks the full new State Pension is now 99.8% of the Personal Allowance. Any future rise of more than £22.40 a year while the allowance stays frozen would take the full new State Pension above it. This is the effect of frozen thresholds combined with triple-lock uprating.

Budget 2025 easement. Budget 2025 (section 5.10, "State Pension and Simple Assessment") said the government will ease the administrative burden for pensioners whose sole income is the basic or new State Pension without any increments, so that they do not have to pay small amounts of tax via Simple Assessment from 2027-28 if the new or basic State Pension exceeds the Personal Allowance from that point. It said it was exploring the best way to achieve this and would set out more detail the following year. As announced, it applies only where the State Pension is the sole income, so anyone who also has a private pension, earnings or other income is outside it.

13. Related tools and guides

Cross-references and modelling tools across the SalaryTax pension stack:

• State Pension calculator - estimate your weekly and annual figure for any qualifying-years input.
• Pension tax relief guide - private pensions, AA, MPAA, LSA / LSDBA.
• Pension comparison guide - State Pension vs workplace vs Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) side-by-side.
• Pension contribution calculator - RAS, Net Pay or salary sacrifice modelling.
• Pension annual allowance calculator - AA, taper, Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA) and carry forward.
• Pension drawdown calculator - DC pot sustainability and SPA bridging.
• Workplace pension auto-enrolment - eligibility, opt-out and re-enrolment.
• How UK tax works - canonical UK tax primer covering PAYE and personal allowances.
• UK tax glossary A-Z - definitions of NI classes, LEL, SPT and other terms used on this page.
• Tax relief guide - the wider survey of UK personal tax reliefs.
• High earner tax planning checklist - includes pension and State Pension touchpoints.
• Tax year-end checklist - 5 April deadlines including Class 3 voluntary contributions.
• WASPI compensation decision 2026 - why the government decided not to compensate 1950s-born women, and what you can do instead.