Anyone topped up thier NI contributions?

I phoned them and they were really helpful but very compartmentalised, ie one department could speak about one thing but had to call another department for another.

Probably best to call.

Yep I phoned them too and it was pretty easy to deal with one missing year.

I single year missing isn't necessarily worth topping up, unless it was in the last two years or you are close to retirement age and need that year to count.

As others have said, be ready to be passed around departments... when you do, be sure to ask which department you're being transferred to, so you can ring the directly next time rather than start all over again.

is this a thing when you are self employed ? and have not paid weekly or monthly all the time like if you were employed ?

Yes. Class 2 can be missed at first when changing to self employed. All classes (1 and 4) can go wrong when changing employers as well, or when you have multiple employers or a mix of employed and self employed work. Or working abroad for a year. Or a temporary NI number is used by a lax employer. Or anything that results in a gap in NI payments against your NI record.

Can't help on the "how to" but to to state that the "why" is that is well worth trying to have a complete record - pays for itself in a two or three years I believe. The circumstances when it may not pay off are (i) if you are young and believe the system will change by retirement age or (ii) you are unlucky and you have no or very short dated need for the state pension

I checked this on the GOV website this week.
Seems i have 6 years which are 'incomplete' from when i was in full time education.
I don't think its worth topping up as i've got 27 'full' years so only need 8 more to get the full state pension anyway.
I'm 50, and expect to work until i'm 65.

Am i wrong about this? Gov website says you need 35 years worth - is this correct?
Is it still worth me trying to complete the incomplete years?

If those student years finished more than 5 or 6 years ago... they're gone... unlikely you can voluntarily top them up.

I’m self employed. A few years missing (what was I doing?). Thought I’d top it up but got confused by the website and rang them up. The guy was really helpful and told me not to bother. Which was nice.

Gov website says you need 35 years worth – is this correct?

Yep, 35 years now.

Thanks,

I'm 43, My record says:

26 years of full contributions
24 years to contribute before 5 April 2046
2 years when you did not contribute enough

But the above is confusing as I read you need 35 years contributions for full state pension, so I need another 9? or ???

Does the '24 years to contribute before 5 April 2046' simply refer to how long I have to hit 35 years payments before I reach retirement age?

You need to contribute every year you are working for the next 24 years. You only need to work (and contribute) for at least 9 of those 24 years to get full pension. You still need to pay for every year you do work in the next 24, even after you’ve paid in for another 9 years… NI isn’t optional when you are working and under retirement age just because you’ve paid your minimum 35 years to get a full pension.

Yes thanks. I think I understand that, I was more thinking if I want to stop working before state pension age, but still get full pension when I am of age it might be worth topping up?

To answer the OP, yes the system is worded poorly, it needs an explanatory note. You have to call HMRC and request to top up your NI years. You have to tell them which years you want to top up, they raise an invoice and give you the 'bill' number which is what you enter online. The bill depends on if your topping up full or part-paid years.

As said by many others you 'only' need 35 full years contributions to get the 'new' current State Pension. So it's only worth topping up part paid years if you want to retire early or have missed big chunks (I did it as I had 10 years missing and might want to stop working early, but it may have not been necessary).

Once you have qualifying years you do still pay NI to accrue state sickness benefits and just general taxation, until you reach state pension age.

I just checked mine 33 full years! (I'm 48) Wish you could opt out once you hit 35 years 🙁

As long as you check gov.uk and you will be working for longer than is required to get to full state pension then there is no point paying extra. Only reason to do so is you’re about to retire and haven’t reached full state pension yet.

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

I tried to top mine up but couldn't figure out how via the website either. I did try phoning them once but I gave up after what must have been 45 minutes on hold.

Must be worth doing if they make it so difficult 😉

But you can't top up over 6 years back though, so I've lost a year, but more recently there's a year I can top.. Just wondering if its worth hedging my bets... I mean I'll more than likely get the additional 9 year's required to add up to 35 total naturally..

If you check the link it will tell you how many more years you need to work to get full state pension. Doesn’t really matter if you missed some - I did deliberately a while back by contracting out, but I still only need 3 more years of work for full state pension so given I’ve got minimum 10 more years to go it doesn’t matter.

Years as a student, self employed and abroad mean I won't have enough unless I work until I'm 95 which will probably be the case.

If you're certain you'll reach 35 years contributions within your working life, don't top up. It's a waste of your money paying voluntary tax - unless your conscience says otherwise.

If you're certain to be short of 35 years, definitely make it up if you can. It costs around high £700's to make up per year and each year adds £5 p/w to your pension, so payback in 3 years.

If you intend to croak within 3 years of drawing your state pension, don't make it up - blow the lot on coke and hookers instead...

I’m not sure I get the 35 years thing. I’ve been working 28 years, with a year out travelling and I contracted out of SERPS for 2 or 3 years back when you were allowed to, so let’s say 24 years of contributions so far but gov.uk tells me I only need to work 3 more years before full state pension.
Not going to argue with it obviously!

Years as a student, self employed and abroad mean I won’t have enough unless I work until I’m 95 which will probably be the case.

if you can top any of those up it’s a no-brainer as it’s much cheaper to buy self-employed years (can’t remember what Class that is) than ordinary years.

If you’re certain to be short of 35 years, definitely make it up if you can. It costs around high £700’s to make up per year and each year adds £5 p/w to your pension, so payback in 3 years.

Yeah thanks... the year I can top up they want about £450, as I was between jobs and just took some time out, so paid a partial amount when working.

so let’s say 24 years of contributions

I can't advise, but if you log in you should be able to see a table with an entry for each year:

2021 to 2022 - Year is not full

2020 to 2021 - Full year

SO I guess as lonng as you have 35 full years by the time you quit work, you'll get full pension when you come of age.

I dunno if partial years can be combined to make full years though.. clear as mud, lol!

Worked mine out - contracting out of serps made no difference - the years still count. Year I went travelling a managed to do enough work in each financial year to still count.
Then I have 3 qualifying years of NI credits that I have no clue about - was a student at the time!

Then I have 3 qualifying years of NI credits that I have no clue about – was a student at the time!

Aiui normal students (eg not post grad) get a free pass while studying

Only got that for 3 years during A levels and first year of uni. Remaining 4 years of uni I didn’t.

Just found out they’re called starting credits and you used to get up to 3 years of them from age 16 if you stayed in education. Was abolished in 2010.

Just about to pay five years for Mrs TiRed thanks to the government changing the rules in 2013. Apparently you had to claim Child Benefit at zero rate to continue getting the NI credits for being a stay at home parent. Of course this was missed by about 200k families who weren’t claiming Child Benefit due to income greater than 50k.

Will probably be a class action at some point, but in the meantime the only answer is to pay for those missing years. So paying for the NI and providing the free childcare too. If she gets three years of state pension, it will be cost neutral but it’s a debacle.

If one of you is at home and you don’t qualify for Child Benefit, YOU MUST STILL CLAIM IT. Just ask for it to be paid at zero rate. Or lose your NI years (£845 per year).

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/child-benefit-shake-up-proposed-could-parents-regain-lost-national-insurance-credits-asIxw8P1wk7G

I did once have to pay £2k to the taxman when they discovered I had 2 NI numbers.

Apparently they frown upon people making one up.

I ve been buying years voluntarily, just missing 2 now. As noted above, if you exceed the 35 you don't get any more pension. So worth keeping a couple back in case you get another job.

Helpline is really useful, I ve called a few times.

BTW there are about half a million fewer claimants of child benefit now than there were in 2012. That’s not a change in demography. If you don’t claim child benefit, your child won’t get an NI number at 16. Linking the two has not worked well according to the former pensions minister.

Always worth checking because 2013 is the furthest back one can backdate before April 6 2013. Haven’t paid yet, but it’s pleasing to hear it’s not hard to pay!

Just looked the gov site thanks to link above for first time in a few years, just a handful of full years required now for the full £185.15 a week, after a few incomplete years.

If you don’t claim child benefit, your child won’t get an NI number at 16.

That is bonkers bureaucracy at its worst.

Does that mean the offspring also loses out on NI years normally accrued when studying immediately after GCSEs?

I did once have to pay £2k to the taxman when they discovered I had 2 NI numbers.

I had a similar problem. They’d swapped me to a temporary NI number without my knowledge. They then thought I’d paid too much NI, and sent me a cheque. I knew I hadn’t overpaid, and didn’t cash the cheque and started chasing the error. The result was then that they thought I’d underpaid to the amount they’d sent me in the post, and charged me for late payment. Joy. After having to cash the cheque they sent in error, and paying them back with interest and charges… they then left me with incomplete years of contributions in my record (despite me repaying the full amount and more). After years of trying to get this rectified, including offering voluntary payments despite having already paid in full and that being refused… I eventually gave up and had to leave the years incomplete. Fun.

I just checked my NI contributions - they are awful.

Loads of years where I paid for 30 weeks or so, but they don't count; loads of years where I was in education or working abroad, so nothing.

Basically I have 21 years, 22 in April. I'm 58 years old. If I work for the next 9 years I'll have 30 years contributions, so I'd have to buy 5 years worth to get the full pension - that would cost about £4300 (I think).

Bollocks.