National Insurance and the state pension

Introduction

To be eligible to claim a state pension when you reach state pension age, you will need to have enough qualifying years on your National Insurance record. Your National Insurance record is built up from age 16 up until you reach state pension age. You can check your state pension age by using the calculator on GOV.UK.

The number of qualifying years you need to have on your record differs depending on whether you are claiming:

• the new state pension – for those who reached or will reach state pension age on or after 6 April 2016. To get the full new state pension, you usually need 35 qualifying years. 
• the basic state pension and additional state pension – for those who reached state pension age before 6 April 2016. The number of qualifying years you need varies between 30 and 44 – see GOV.UK.

On this page we deal with requirements for the new state pension.

Qualifying year

A ‘qualifying year’ is a year when sufficient National Insurance contributions (often referred to as NICs) have been paid or treated as having been paid, or where you have received National Insurance credits. 

• Class 1 National Insurance contributions are calculated and paid over under Pay As You Earn (PAYE) each time an employee is paid, provided the employee earns over the primary threshold. If you earn less than the primary threshold but more than the lower earnings limit, you will be treated as having paid Class 1 NICs for that pay period. You can read more about this on our page NIC for employees.
• Class 2 National Insurance contributions – are treated as having been paid by self-employed people earning over the small profits threshold of £7,105 for 2026/27 (£6,845 for 2025/26). Those with profits below £7,105 a year for 2026/27 (£6,845 for 2025/265) can continue to pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance contributions to keep their entitlement to certain state benefits. Self-employed people might also need to pay Class 4 National Insurance contributions, but these are not relevant for qualifying year purposes. You can read more about this on our page National Insurance contributions for the self-employed.
• Class 3 National Insurance contributions – are voluntary contributions payable per week. See ‘Increasing your state pension entitlement’ below. 
• National Insurance credits (sometimes referred to as NI credits) are made for specific weeks in a tax year. For example, if you receive carer’s allowance for the first four weeks of the tax year, your National Insurance credits relating to the carer’s allowance apply for those specific four weeks.

Please note, the tax year in which a person turns 16 can be a qualifying year, provided sufficient National Insurance contributions have been paid or National Insurance  credits received, as detailed above. However, the tax year in which you reach state pension age, or any later year, cannot be a qualifying year. This is regardless of the level of National Insurance Contributions paid or National Insurance credits received. 

Some examples

The easiest way to explain the concept of the qualifying year is to look at examples. The position for employees is slightly more difficult, so we consider other individuals first. The examples do not cover all possibilities, and you should check your position with HMRC before deciding whether you should pay voluntary National Insurance contributions. Also, note that if you ever paid National Insurance contributions at the contracted-out rate, which was lower than the standard rate, your state pension may be less than the full amount. We discuss this in more detail later in this page.

Self-employed for full tax year (and does not receive National Insurance credits)

The individual needs to have paid, or be treated as having paid, Class 2 National Insurance contributions for the full tax year to make a qualifying year. 

That is, they need to have paid, or be treated as having paid, 52 weeks’ worth of Class 2 National Insurance contributions.

Receives National Insurance credits for full tax year

The individual has a qualifying year.

Self-employed for part of tax year and receives National Insurance credits for part of tax year

The important thing is that the individual needs to have paid (or be treated as having paid) Class 2 National Insurance contributions or have received National Insurance credits for each week of the tax year. 

A qualifying year is not always achieved in a year when there are any weeks when class 2 National Insurance contributions are paid and National Insurance credits are received for the same week. A year in which someone who pays 26 weeks’ worth of Class 2 National Insurance contributions and also receives 26 weeks’ worth of National Insurance credits (and therefore appears to have 52 weeks of National Insurance recorded for the year) may not be a qualifying year.  To illustrate, if there is one week in a year for which that individual paid (or was treated as having paid) Class 2 National Insurance contributions and they also received National Insurance credits for the same week, that week can only be counted once. Therefore, National Insurance will only be recorded for 51 weeks, and there will be one week in that year for which no National Insurance contributions have been paid or credited. As it is not a full year, it cannot be a qualifying year. 

That individual could choose to pay voluntary Class 3 National Insurance contributions for that week, if they wanted to make up a qualifying year for state pension purposes. We explain more about voluntary National Insurance contributions later in this page under the heading ‘Increasing your state pension entitlement’.

Employed for whole of tax year and receives no NI credits

A qualifying year is generally a tax year in which an individual has paid (or is treated as having paid) National Insurance contributions or was credited with National Insurance contributions on earnings of at least 52 times the lower earnings limit (LEL). 

The weekly lower earnings limit for the 2026/27 tax year is £129. This means you need to have earned at least £6,708 (for 2026/27), but you need to exclude any week where you earned less than £129. 

This means you could satisfy a qualifying year by earning £300 for 25 weeks in the tax year and only earning £100 in total for the other 27 weeks of the year; but you would not satisfy the condition if you earned £300 for 10 weeks and then £100 for the other 42 weeks of the year. We explain what is meant by the lower earnings limit and being treated as having paid National Insurance contributions in more detail in our employment section.

Employed for part of tax year and receives NI credits for part of year

Despite only working for part of the year, you may have earned enough to have a qualifying year without the need for National Insurance credits. Read the paragraph above. 

Otherwise, you will need to work out how many weeks’ contributions your employed earnings qualify you for and then add on the number of weeks you get National Insurance credits for (but remember that if you earn over the lower earnings limit for that week, you cannot count National Insurance credits you receive for that same week). If there is a gap, you could choose to pay voluntary Class 3 National Insurance contributions for that week, if you wanted to make up a qualifying year for state pension purposes. We explain more about voluntary National Insurance contributions below under the heading ‘Increasing your state pension entitlement’.

Increasing your state pension entitlement

Your state pension is based on the number of qualifying years you have on your National Insurance record when you reach your state pension age. It is possible to boost the number of your qualifying years by making voluntary contributions. 

Number of qualifying years needed

The number of qualifying years you need depends upon when you reach pension age. This page only looks in detail at the new state pension. You usually need to have 35 qualifying years on your National Insurance record in order to qualify for a full new state pension.

You will usually need at least 10 qualifying years on your National Insurance record to qualify for any state pension. If you do not have 10 qualifying years in the UK but you have made social security contributions in another EEA member state or Switzerland over the course of your working life, or a country with which the UK has a bilateral social security agreement, your periods of overseas contributions can help you satisfy this condition. 

This is called the aggregation principle (see our International section for more information). This essentially allows you to consider periods of overseas social security contributions where necessary, in order to meet the minimum UK requirements to qualify.

Voluntary contributions

Paying voluntary National Insurance contributions can help to ensure you secure a qualifying year for your National Insurance record. This can be useful if you do not pay a sufficient level of National Insurance contributions on your earnings and/or are not entitled to National Insurance credits.

Voluntary contributions may be either:

• Class 2, if they are for a period when you have been self-employed in the UK but not earning enough to have to pay those contributions (or to be treated as having paid contributions).  They cost £3.65 a week for the 2026/27 tax year; or
• Class 3 in other cases. They cost £18.40 a week for the 2026/27 tax year. Someone who has not worked at all during 2026/27 may need to make 52 weeks’ worth of Class 3 contributions to make it a ‘qualifying year’ at a cost of £956.80. Someone who has already worked for part of the year or has received National Insurance credits for part of the year may need to make fewer Class 3 contributions and therefore pay less. For more information on Class 3 contributions see GOV.UK.

Some people pay voluntary contributions when they are going abroad to continue to build up an entitlement to the state pension while they are away. You can read more about this on our guidance on National Insurance in cross-border situations and in HMRC’s guidance NI38 on GOV.UK. 

Backdated voluntary National Insurance contributions

If there are gaps in your National Insurance record for any of the previous six tax years, it might be beneficial to pay backdated voluntary National Insurance contributions to increase your pension entitlement. This will depend on your overall National Insurance record.

Up until 5 April 2025, it was possible to make voluntary contributions for back as far as the 2006/07 tax year. This extended window has now closed, and you can now only go back six tax years. 

Contracted-out National Insurance contributions

Under the old system, the state pension was made up of two parts:

• the basic state pension, and
• additional state pension, sometimes referred to as state second pension or SERPS (State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme).

As we explain on our state pension page, it was possible to be 'contracted-out' of the additional state pension. This means that you did not accrue any entitlement to the additional state pension in those years. Instead, you would have paid a lower rate of NICs and may have earned replacement pension benefits in an employer scheme or a personal pension.

Those affected will include public sector employees – civil servants, NHS employees, police officers, teachers and members of the armed forces.

The introduction of the new state pension from 6 April 2016 brought an end to the contracting-out rules. Since 6 April 2016 it has not been possible for anyone to be contracted-out.

From April 2026, the full new state pension is £241.30 per week, but if you were an employee who paid National Insurance contributions at the contracted-out rate up to 5 April 2016 this could affect the amount of state pension you will receive in the future. 

Checking if you were contracted-out

Many people may not have realised that they were contracted-out. One way to check would be to look an old payslip dated before April 2016. If it shows the letter “D” or “N” on the National Insurance line, this means you were contracted-out. Letter “A” would mean you were not contracted-out.

If you have, or previously had, a married woman’s reduced rate election and were contracted-out your payslip would show the letter “E”. Letter “B” would mean you were not contracted-out.

Effect on new state pension entitlement

If you were previously contracted-out you may find that, despite having a full National Insurance record, you may not necessarily get the full amount of the new state pension per week. 

The rules around contracting out and new state pension are complicated. Detailed guidance on how the transitional arrangements apply and examples can be found on GOV.UK.

You can check your future state pension entitlement on GOV.UK and, if you do not agree with the information held, contact HMRC.