How to high up and increase your state pension: Steve Webb’s golden guidelines

Buying state pension top-ups can give a huge boost to retirement income, but people are often baffled over whether doing this will be worthwhile for them personally. 

You are allowed to backdate for the past six years, but you will need to check your state pension forecast and your National Insurance record to find out how close you are to getting the full amount already.

The Government has an online service to help you decide if you need to top up and if so which years to buy, or you can use the HMRC app. 

You can buy on the spot online, but you can still phone up and pay offline if you prefer. 

Meanwhile, some people are not allowed to use the online tool, including people already over state pension age, those self-employed in any of the years they are trying to pay for, and those who lived abroad in the years they want to fill up now (other excepted groups are listed here).

If you are under state pension age contact the Future Pension Centre and if you are over 66 contact the Pension Service.

If you live overseas you need to contact the International Pension Centre and you can do this using an online form.

How much does it cost to boost your state pension?

The rate for 2025/26 is £17.45 a week or £923 for a full year if you were employed. Here is a price list including previous years from the MoneyHelper website. 

Many people have gaps here and there over the course of each year and therefore don’t need to pay for a full year, just a partial amount to fill any holes.

Self-employed people pay cheaper rates of NI contributions, and the system for them was overhauled in April 2024. 

This is Money columnist and former Pensions Minister Steve Webb has details on how self-employed people can build a state pension record.

Are state pension top-ups good value?

Under the triple lock guarantee, older people got a 4.8 per cent boost to the full state pension from 6 April 2026, making the new headline rate £241.30 a week or nearly £12,550 a year.

‘At best topping up your state pension can be a highly cost-effective way of securing a higher income in retirement,’ says Steve Webb.

‘In many cases this will boost state pension entitlement by 1/35th of the standard rate.’ 

That works out at £6.90 a week, or around £359 a year, or £7,200 over a  20-year retirement (not taking into account tax), for an initial outlay of £923 at the 2025-2026 rate. 

Webb says: ‘Even if/when we get back to a world where Class 3 NICs cost rises with inflation, the state pension will always rise by inflation or more, so the balance will probably continue to shift towards top-ups being steadily better value. 

He  adds that there are two groups for whom top-ups may be of particular interest. First, public servants who retired early and were members of a contracted out occupational pension scheme which reduced their state pension below the maximum amount.

And second, self-employed people who might have gaps in their NI record.

Steve Webb’s golden rules for buying state pension top-ups

1. Make sure you are getting any credits you are entitled to before paying voluntary NI for a particular year.

For example, grandparents under pension age may be able to get credits towards their state pension if they are looking after a grandchild, enabling the child’s parent to go out to work.

As NI credits don’t cost anything, you should always claim what is available for free before paying voluntary NI for any given year.

2. Whether or not it makes sense for any given individual to top up depends on their individual circumstances.

You should always start by checking your state pension record at the Government’s web page.

This may tell you, for example, that you are already going to get the maximum state pension and therefore don’t need to make any voluntary contributions, even if you have some gaps in your record.

3. Some years may be cheaper to fill than others. If, for example, you worked for part of a year, you may find that you can complete that year more cheaply than filling a year that was completely blank.

4. Fill gaps at the Class 2 rate if you can as voluntary NI for the self-employed is much cheaper than for employees.

If you had low-income self-employment in a particular year and have a gap in your record, you should be able to pay at the Class 2 rate for that year, which will save you money.

The system for building a state pension record for self-employed people changed from April 2024. 

Steve urges all self-employed people – check your state pension record now.

He says: I have lost count of the number of times I have heard from self-employed people who reached retirement only to find big gaps in their NI record.

‘This often turns out to be related to periods when their accountant was dealing with these matters on their behalf and they simply assumed that everything was in order, when this was not actually the case.

‘Unfortunately, the onus is on each individual to make sure that they have paid the correct amount of National Insurance and it can be difficult or impossible to fix things much after the event.’

5. People who expect to be on benefits in retirement might find their increased state pension is clawed back in reduced pension credit or housing benefit.

6. Always check before handing over any money because the rules are complex.

How much is the state pension now? 

The headline full rate state pension is £241.30 per week from 6 April 2026. 

The basic rate if you reached state pension age before April 2016 is £184.90 a week. But people on this old basic rate also get hefty top-ups, called S2P or Serps, providing those were earned earlier in life.

People who have contracted out of S2P and Serps to pay less National Insurance over the years and retire after April 2016 might get less than the full new state pension. 

Workers now need to have 35 years of contributions to get the new flat rate state pension, compared with 30 years of qualifying National Insurance contributions to get the old state pension.

But even if you paid in full for a whole 35 years or more, if you contracted out for some years it might still reduce what you get. 

Everyone gets the option of deferring their state pension to get more in their later years.