Reaching State Pension age before April 2005
If you are already over State Pension age
If you are already claiming State Pension, you can choose to temporarily stop your claim to build up extra State Pension or a lump-sum. You can only do this once and you must normally be living in the UK.
If you do not live in the UK, you can cancel your claim if you are living in one of the countries listed and are a national or otherwise entitled to live there. This right comes from agreements coordinating social security rules between the UK and these countries.
The relevant countries are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
If you have not yet claimed your State Pension, what you eventually get will depend on how long you have put off your claim.
If you started putting off your claim on or after 6 April 2005, you can get extra State Pension or you can choose a one-off, taxable lump-sum payment when you finally claim (you have to put off claiming continuously for at least 12 months to have the choice of a lump sum).
If you started putting off your claim before 6 April 2005:
- you can only get extra State Pension at the rate that applied before that date (1% for every 7 weeks you put off claiming, which is approximately 7.5% for a full year) for the period before 6 April 2005
- you can get either:
- extra State Pension at the current rate of 1% for every 5 weeks, or about 10.4% for a full year, or,
- providing you don't start claiming your State Pension before 6 April 2006, you can choose a one-off taxable lump-sum payment instead for the period after 6 April 2005, provided it is a continuous period of 12 months or more
The amount of extra State Pension you receive when you claim it is calculated by adding up all the extra State Pension accrued. It is not compounded and should not be seen as interest.
If you’re already over State Pension age and want to find out how much you can get if you stop claiming your State Pension for a while (or if you haven’t yet claimed it) phone The Pension Service on 0845 60 60 265. (If you have speech or hearing difficulties you can contact us using a textphone on 0845 60 60 285).