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Claiming extra State Pension

By choosing to put off claiming your State Pension you may get extra State Pension. Before you decide whether to defer, find out more about the benefits of extra State Pension and how it affects inheritance, tax and other benefits.

How much will you get?

If you choose to put off claiming your State Pension you can claim extra State Pension instead. You must put off your claim for at least five weeks.

For every five weeks you put off claiming you can earn an increase to your State Pension of one per cent. This is equivalent to about 10.4 per cent extra for every full year you put off claiming. You can benefit by putting off claiming your State Pension for as little as five weeks.

Extra State Pension is paid on top of your normal weekly State Pension. It continues for as long as you are getting State Pension. Extra State Pension is normally increased each April.

Claiming other benefits

How other benefits affect extra State Pension

If you defer your pension and choose extra State Pension, it will be treated like any other income when working out other benefits you may be receiving. These include:

  • Pension Credit
  • Housing Benefit
  • Tax credits

If you have put off claiming your State Pension then some days will not count towards building up any extra State Pension for example:

  • if you get other benefits
  • if someone gets a dependency increase in any of these benefits for you

This will only apply if you are living with the person getting the dependency increase, unless they are your husband or wife.

These benefits include:

  • Carer's Allowance
  • Incapacity Benefit
  • Severe Disablement Allowance
  • Widow's Pension
  • Widowed Mother's Allowance
  • Unemployability Supplement or any type of State Pension

You won’t build up extra State Pension for any days you are in prison.

From April 2011, any days that you or your partner receive any of the following benefits will not count towards any extra State Pension:

  • Income Support
  • Pension Credit
  • Employment Support Allowance (income related)
  • Jobseeker’s Allowance (income based)

Days that you receive Graduated Retirement Benefit or Shared Additional Pension will count towards an extra State Pension’

Tax

Your extra State Pension is counted as income for tax purposes in the same way as your State Pension.

Inheritance

If you die while you are putting off your State Pension, your widow, widower or surviving civil partner may be entitled to extra State Pension. This would take effect when they claim their own State Pension.

Your widow, widower or surviving civil partner may get extra State Pension added to their own State Pension after your death. This could happen if you had already claimed your State Pension and chosen extra State Pension before your death.

The amount of extra State Pension payable to a widow, widower or surviving civil partner will be based on:

  • all of the deceased’s basic State Pension
  • between 50 and 100 per cent of any additional State Pension (depending on the date the deceased reached State Pension age)

You can’t claim extra State Pension from your husband’s, wife’s or civil partner’s National Insurance contributions if both the following apply:

  • you are widowed before you reach State Pension age
  • you remarry or form a new civil partnership before you reach State Pension age

Before 6 April 2010

You can’t claim extra State Pension from your wife’s or civil partner’s National Insurance contributions if both the following apply:

  • you are a widower or surviving civil partner who reached State Pension age before 6 April 2010
  • you were under State Pension age when your late wife or civil partner died

Claiming a lump sum payment

If you put off claiming your State Pension, you can choose to claim a lump sum payment instead of extra State Pension.

More useful links

Do it online

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