Retrospective Voluntary National Insurance Contributions

The UK government has announced a further extension to the deadline for making retrospective voluntary NICs covering the period from April 2006 onwards.

If there have been gaps in your National Insurance Contributions, there is a possibility that you may not meet the qualifying year requirement to receive the full state pension (dependent on the size of the gap and how close you are to state pension age). Retrospective contributions can fill these gaps and ensure the full state pension is received.

Eligible individuals will now be able to top up their NICs record until 5 April 2025, rather than 31 July 2023 as had been announced earlier in 2023.

Strictly, this is an extension to the transitional protection that was originally introduced alongside the new state pension which allowed individuals to make up gaps in their contributions record for the period from 6 April 2006 to 5 April 2016, and is separate to the regular six-year look-back period for which retrospective NICs can be made as a matter of course. The government is, however, applying the extended deadline for all tax years which otherwise would reach their six-year payment deadline before 5 April 2025 (i.e. including 2016–17 and 2017–18).

As with the previous deadline extension, any payments made up until 5 April 2025 will be accepted at the rates that applied in 2022–23.

Voluntary contributions do not always increase your state pension, however. Whether or not voluntary contributions are beneficial should be considered on a case by case basis. If you are unsure if voluntary NICs are something that would benefit you, we are happy to help review your position and advise you of the best course of action going forward, please contact us.