the Daily Record<\/a>.<\/p>\nIf you’re concerned about the number of years you need to work – whether retirement is a distant prospect or just around the corner – our helpful guide below should clarify how National Insurance contributions influence the amount of State Pension you’ll receive.<\/p>\n
How to qualify for any New State Pension payment<\/p>\n
You’ll need at least 10 qualifying years on your National Insurance record to be eligible for any State Pension, but these don’t have to be 10 consecutive years.<\/p>\n
This means that for at least 10 years, one or more of the following applied to you:<\/p>\n
you were employed and made National Insurance contributionsyou received National Insurance credits, for instance if you were jobless, ill, a parent or a careryou made voluntary National Insurance contributions<\/p>\n
Even if you’ve lived or worked overseas, you might still be able to receive some New State Pension.<\/p>\n
You may also qualify if you’ve made married women’s or widow’s reduced rate contributions – learn more about this on the GOV.UK website here.<\/p>\n
How to receive full New State Pension payments<\/p>\n
The first thing to understand is that ‘full’ refers to the maximum amount of New State Pension a person can get.<\/p>\n
You’ll need approximately 35 qualifying years to receive the full New State Pension if you don’t have a National Insurance record before 6 April 2016 – this could be more if you were ‘contracted out’, find out more here.<\/p>\n
For individuals who have contributed between 10 and 35 years, they are entitled to a portion of the new State Pension, but not the full amount unless they purchase additional NI years.<\/p>\n
Qualifying years if you’re working<\/p>\n
When you’re employed, you pay National Insurance and earn a qualifying year if:<\/p>\n
you’re employed and earning over \u00a3242 a week from one employeryou’re self-employed and paying NI contributions<\/p>\n
You might not be paying National Insurance contributions because your earnings are less than \u00a3242 a week. However, you may still earn a qualifying year if you earn between \u00a3123 and \u00a3242 a week from one employer – find out more here.<\/p>\n
Qualifying years if you’re not working<\/p>\n
You may receive National Insurance credits if you’re unable to work – for instance due to illness or disability, or if you’re a carer or unemployed.<\/p>\n
You can receive National Insurance credits if you:<\/p>\n
claim Child Benefit for a child under 12 (or under 16 before 2010)receive Jobseeker’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowanceare in receipt of Carer’s AllowanceIf you’re not working or receiving National Insurance credits<\/p>\n
You might be able to make voluntary National Insurance contributions if you’re not in one of these groups but wish to increase your State Pension amount. Find out more on the GOV.UK website here.<\/p>\n
What if there are gaps in your National Insurance record?<\/p>\n
Even with gaps in your National Insurance (NI) record, you can still be eligible for the full New State Pension. A State Pension statement can provide information on how much State Pension you might receive.<\/p>\n
You can also request a National Insurance statement from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to verify if there are any gaps in your record.<\/p>\n
If your National Insurance record has gaps that could hinder you from receiving the full New State Pension, you might have the option to:<\/p>\n
Acquire National Insurance creditsMake voluntary National Insurance contributionsVerify your State Pension age<\/p>\n
Use the free online tool on the GOV.UK website<\/a> to check your State Pension age and determine when you can retire and start claiming your State pension.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The full New State Pension payment is \u00a3230.25 a week but to get this you’ll need to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,38235,186,184,185,9876,10894],"class_list":{"0":"post-81045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-department-for-work-and-pensions","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-state-pension","16":"tag-your-money"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}