How to check National Insurance contributions – and how to pay them

When you reach State Pension age, the amount of pension you'll be paid by the government depends on how much National Insurance you’ve contributed during your lifetime. 

However, in some cases, there might be a shortfall stopping you getting the full State Pension – for example, if you’ve spent some time out of paid employment bringing up a family or caring for other relatives and you’ve not claimed any benefit. 

The good news is that it’s possible to plug these gaps by paying to make up the years you’ve missed by making voluntary National Insurance contributions (NICs). 

That said, whether it’s worth topping up any missing NICs will depend on several things – if you’ve already reached State Pension age, how many years you’ve missed and your life expectancy. 

While it’s not an overly complex process to top up any NICs, there are a few steps you’ll need to follow – but given it can significantly boost your State Pension over the course of your retirement, it might be one of the most worthwhile things you’ll ever do to improve your finances. 

National Insurance and your pension entitlement 

Under present rules, if you’ve made at least 10 years’ worth of NICs, you should be entitled to some State Pension, and the full State Pension if you’ve contributed for 35 complete years. 

Usually, if you have been in employment or self-employment and have been paying National Insurance for the full financial year, that will count as a year towards your pension entitlement. 

However, you don’t necessarily need to be in work to build up your National Insurance record. There are a number of circumstances where you could be eligible for National Insurance credits – the full details are listed at gov.uk. 

This could include taking time out of work to look after children under the age of 12 or to care for someone that's sick or disabled. You should also get credits if you’re unemployed and claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance.  

Grandparents may also be eligible for credits if they look after grandchildren – but this is subject to a few different criteria, such as if the parent is registered for child benefit and agrees to transfer over the credit they’re entitled to. 

You’ll need to apply for something called Specified Adult Childcare credits, and it’s worth reading up to see if you qualify – the Low Income Tax Reform Group has a good resource on this. 

Get a State Pension forecast 

You can find out how many years’ worth of NICs you’ve accrued so far, and what your State Pension entitlement is likely to be, by using the government’s State Pension forecast tool.  

You’ll need a Government Gateway ID to do so, but the site provides details of how to create a new ID as well as how to recover a forgotten one.  

Topping up your National Insurance record 

If it’s looking like you won’t be entitled to the full State Pension because you haven’t paid enough National Insurance, it might be possible to top it up. 

Chris Demetriou, Accountant and Co-Founder of accountants Archimedia Accounts, says: “For those with contribution gaps that may lead to an incomplete National Insurance record, there are steps that can be taken to improve your pension entitlement.  

“One is paying voluntary [NICs] to plug missing years due to self-employment without contributions, time spent unemployed or overseas residence, for example.” 

He adds: “Generally, making further contributions is worthwhile if the increased pension amount over the course of your retirement exceeds the money you need to put in.” 

The MoneySavingExpert website has a rough calculator that shows how much extra pension you’re likely to get by topping up (scroll down to Step 5), and gives a smart, simple-to-follow outline of how long you’ll need to live to make the additional contributions worthwhile financially. 

To pay for a full year’s contributions costs £17.45 for each missing week in the 2023-24 or 2024-25 tax year. This rate also applies to years before 2021-22, but lower rates currently apply between 2021 and 2023. 

It may be the case that you only need to top up a few weeks’ worth of contributions to make up a full year, so you’ll get a big boost for little outlay. 

Until April 5 2025, you can top up any gaps in your National Insurance record going back to 2006, although normally it’s only possible to go back six years – so if you have got any shortfall, now is the time to try and close it.  

The extension back to 2006 was granted during the transitional period when the new State Pension was introduced to ensure more people will be eligible for the full amount. 

How to pay voluntary National Insurance contributions online 

The current method of paying extra NICs can require several phone calls to make any payments. MoneyHelper, the money and pensions site backed by the government, does highlight “lines are very busy and you may not always be able to get through to an adviser”, so be patient and be prepared to call a few times. 

(One tip is to call promptly at 8AM, when the service opens, to give yourself a stronger chance of having your case looked at.) 

Here’s how it works: 

• You speak to the government’s Future Pension Centre on 0800 731 0175 to help you make your decision (if you’re below State Pension age). You can check it online yourself, but there may be other factors that affect whether you can make the NICs, so it might be worth speaking to someone to check. 
• If you’re already at the State Pension age, you can still top up previous National Insurance years and increase your monthly pension payments – but instead you need to call the Pension Service on 0800 731 7898. 
• If you’ve got confirmation that topping up your NICs would be beneficial, you’ll need to contact HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) on 0300 200 2500 to get an 18-digit payment reference number that corresponds to the year or years you’re topping up, and the amount you wish to pay.  
• Once you have this number, you can top up online via the dedicated UK Government website. 

The UK Government has been planning to introduce an online system to automate this – removing the calls to Future Pension Centre / Pension Service and HMRC – but this has been subject to delays and, at the time of writing, still isn’t active. 

However, when it does go live, you should be able to quickly log in and pay for any missing years without delays waiting on phone lines. 

Key takeaways 

• Paying sufficient National Insurance contributions (NICs) is crucial if you want to get the full State Pension entitlement.  
• Even if your record has some gaps, it's possible to make up a shortfall and increase the amount of income you’ll receive in retirement buy purchasing voluntary NICs 
• You can also get NICs when claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, Carer’s Allowance or, in some cases, caring for children or grandchildren. 
• If you do need to make up gaps, you’ll need to contact the Future Pensions Centre / Pensions Service and HMRC to get the details you’ll need.