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Important information about your State Pension forecast

Your online forecast will give you an estimate of your State Pension based on the current rules. Read on for details of future changes that may affect some of the information in your online forecast.

Service closed at weekends

Due to improvements being made to online services, the online State Pension forecast service will not be available during the following weekends:

  • 9pm Friday 4 May to midnight Monday 7 May
  • 9pm Sunday 3 June to midnight Tuesday 5 June
  • 9pm Friday 15 June to midnight Sunday 17 June
  • 9pm Friday 29 June to midnight Sunday 1 July
  • 9pm Friday 13 July to midnight Sunday 15 July
  • 9pm Friday 27 July to midnight Sunday 29 July
  • 9pm Friday 10 August to midnight Sunday 12 August
  • 9pm Friday 24 August to midnight Sunday 26 August

Women age 60 years and over

You can get an online State Pension forecast, if all of the following apply:

  • you’re a woman born before 6 April 1953
  • you’re age 60 years or over but not yet within four months of reaching your State Pension age

However, you’ll need to enrol with the Government Gateway each time you want to use the service, even if you have used the service before. For this reason The Pension Service suggest that, instead of using the online service, you apply for a forecast by telephone or post.

Women born on or after 6 April 1953: men born on or after 6 April 1951

At the present time you can't use the online service to get an estimate of your State Pension if you’re:

  • a woman born on or after 6 April 1953
  • a man born on or after 6 April 1951

We recommend that you do not enrol with the Government Gateway until the on-line service is again available for you to use.

In the meantime you can get an estimate of the State Pension you may get by using the State Pension profiler or asking for a State Pension statement.

Additional State Pension

The amount of additional State Pension you may get at your State Pension age could be different to the estimate shown in your on-line forecast.

Why could it be different?

On 6 April 2012 contracting out into a defined contribution scheme was abolished.

On that date, you were brought back into the additional State Pension if you are a member of:

  • a defined contribution workplace scheme (sometimes known as an occupational or company pension scheme) that was contracted out before 6 April 2012
  • a personal or stakeholder pension scheme that was contracted out before 6 April 2012

If you joined the additional State Pension on 6 April 2012 due to this change, your State Pension forecast won’t show the effect of the change.

How this change may affect the estimate of your additional State Pension

In your State Pension forecast you are given two figures for your estimated additional State Pension.

The change does not affect the first of these figures – the additional State Pension that’s based on your National Insurance contributions record to date.

However, it may affect the second figure – the additional State Pension you may get at State Pension age. The figure shown does not include any extra additional State Pension you may get from 6 April 2012 because you are no longer contracted out.

If you are contracted out on a salary-related basis you are not affected by this change.

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