State pensioners warned they must pay £824 before looming deadline

State pensioners have been urged to pay HUNDREDS of pounds for National Insurance contribution top-ups which could boost their State Pensions. Pensioners must act swiftly amid a looming deadline from HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

A deadline looms to pay £824 to boost your State Pension by £5,500. Pensioners can dramatically increase the pension they are entitled to by handing over cash to HMRC to cover any years they missed paying National Insurance contributions.

While under normal rules you can usually only fill gaps in NI contributions for the past six years, under a special concession, the government has let people also claim back to between April 2006 and April 2018. This allowance was meant to end in April 2023 but the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) struggled to cope with demand and its phone lines became jammed so the deadline was extended to July 2023 and then again to 5 April 2025.

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Mike Ambery, Retirement Savings Director at Standard Life, said: "After the deadline, you'll only be able to plug gaps from 2019 onwards so there could be 13 years that you will lose the ability to buy back. Time moves fast and there's now less than six months to go. Paying voluntary National Insurance contributions could make a difference in retirement, but it's not right for everyone."

Tom Francis, head of advice at Octopus Money, told GB News: "Purchasing extra NI years can be a great way to achieve a guaranteed boost in income every year after you retire." Pensions minister Emma Reynolds is urging people to make sure they don’t miss the deadline, too.

She says: “We want pensioners of today and tomorrow to enjoy the dignity and support they deserve in retirement. That’s why I urge everyone to check if they could benefit by filling gaps before the deadline passes.” “For individuals with multiple gaps in their NI records, the potential long-term benefits are significant,” says Kirsty Anderson, retirement specialist at Quilter.

“Even topping up a single year would be recouped within a few years of retirement.”