Deferring your State Pension
If you don’t need your State Pension, you can defer or delay claiming it. If you do defer, you’ll get some extra money when you do claim.
What happens if you defer your State Pension?
If you defer your State Pension, that means you don't claim it when you are entitled to it in return for higher regular payments.
When you reach State Pension age, that means you’re old enough to get your State Pension, the pension is not paid automatically, you’ll need to claim it. If you don’t need your State Pension or having it would, for example, put you into a higher tax bracket, you can defer it. In practical terms, this simply means that you don’t claim it when you reach State Pension age. By deferring your State Pension, you will get an increase in your regular payments when you do claim.
How much extra will I get by not claiming?
If you defer your new State Pension, you’ll get an extra 5.8% added onto your regular payments for each full year you defer. This applies if you reach State Pension age after 5 April 2016. You may be able to get a lump sum instead of or as well as extra money on your regular payments.
Here’s how much extra you could get:
- For every nine weeks you defer claiming your State Pension, you’ll get an extra 1% of your pension amount added onto your regular State Pension payments for the rest of your life. For tax year 2025-26, this works out at an extra £2.30 a week if you’re entitled to the full new State Pension.
- If you defer your State Pension for a year, you’ll get just under 5.8% extra, which works out at an extra £13.35 a week if you’re entitled to the full new State Pension. This would mean you would receive £243.60 a week in State Pension in the tax year 2025-26, which is an extra £694.72 a year.
Instead of receiving any extra money, you can get your State Pension as a backdated lump sum of up to 52 weeks’ worth. However, you will only receive the State Pension you’ve not claimed, it won’t include any extra money as you would receive with your regular State Pension payments. For example, if you defer your State Pension by a year and then decide you’d like to receive it, you can claim a lump sum payment of £11,973, assuming you’re entitled to the full new State Pension (this is the 2025-26 amount).
If you defer your State Pension for more than a year and you wanted some of that deferred pension as a lump sum, you could receive a lump sum of up to 52 weeks’ worth and the rest would be extra money on your regular payments.
Deferring your State Pension if you reached State Pension age before April 2016
If you reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016, then the rules on how much you get for deferring your State Pension are slightly different.
In this case, you can get an extra weekly amount or take your deferred State Pension as a lump sum no matter how long you deferred for. In both cases, you would receive additional money.
- If you take the deferred State Pension as a lump sum, that payment will be made up of the State Pension you missed out on plus interest at 2% above the Bank of England base rate.
- If you take your deferred State Pension as regular payments, you will receive just under 1% for every five weeks you defer. This works out at just under 10.4% extra State Pension for every year you defer.
Can you defer if already claiming your State Pension?
If you’ve already started claiming your State Pension, you can still defer it. If, for example, you decide to go back to work or to run your own business after you’ve retired, you may not need your State Pension income. However, you can only defer your State Pension this way once. If you change your mind and start claiming again, you can’t defer it a second time
If you want to defer your State Pension after you’ve already started claiming it, you should contact the Pension Service on 0800 731 0469 and let them know.
Deferring and state benefits
If you’re on means-tested benefits, such as Income Support, Pension Credit or Carer’s Allowance, then you can’t build up any extra State Pension by deferring. However, this doesn’t apply if you’re on non-means-tested benefits, such as Attendance Allowance. You can find out more about state benefits and deferring your State Pension (opens in a new window) on the Gov.uk website.
If you’re deferring your State Pension, you’ll have to claim the Winter Fuel Payment, rather than receiving it automatically. However, you’ll only have to do this once.
Pension Credit is a benefit that’s designed to top up the income of low-income pensioners. Deferring your State Pension could mean that you don’t qualify for Pension Credit once you start claiming your pension, because of the extra money you’ll receive. It’s worth being aware of this before you decide to defer your State Pension.
Deferring your State Pension and tax
While it can make sense to delay taking your State Pension if you’re a higher rate taxpayer or are near the higher rate tax threshold, the extra State Pension you receive when you do claim it will be subject to tax.
How many years can you defer your State Pension?
You can defer your State Pension for as long as you want. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that:
- The longer you defer the more State Pension you will have missed out on.
- You will have to pay tax on the extra State Pension you receive, which could even push you into a higher tax bracket if you have other income in retirement.
What happens if you die while deferring?
If you die while deferring your State Pension, then the extra amount you get from deferring can only be inherited by your husband, wife or civil partner if you reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016. If you reached State Pension age after that, the additional amount cannot be inherited. There’s more information about inheriting a deferred State Pension (opens in a new window) on the Gov.uk website.
Should you defer your State Pension?
Whether or not you defer your State Pension is a personal choice. Figures obtained by Royal London through a Freedom of information request show that almost 42,000 people claimed a deferred State Pension in 2023-24, with people delaying claiming their State Pension by four years, on average.
Our calculations, using current allowances and tax bands, estimate that if you are a basic rate taxpayer and delay receiving the State Pension for one year, then you’d need to live until you were approximately 82 to see the benefit of delaying. For someone who is a higher rate taxpayer with taxable earnings over £50,270 (in England and Wales), then you’d only need to live until you were approximately 79. Scotland has different tax rates and thresholds, so the calculation for a higher rate taxpayer would be slightly different.
How to claim your State Pension
Once you decide that you want to stop deferring your State Pension and receive it, you have to claim it. If you deferred the new State Pension, you can claim it (opens in a new window) via the Gov.uk website. If you’re claiming the basic State Pension (opens in a new window), you need to ring the State Pension claim line on 0800 731 7898.
