A woman, whether married
or single, is entitled to claim the Basic State Pension (BSP) on
reaching her State Pension Age (SPA).
The amount available is dependent on the number of qualifying years she has and whether
she reaches her SPA before or after 6 April 2010.
Reached SPA before 6 April 2010
The full BSP is £102.15 per week and is payable if
you have 39 qualifying years.
The minimum you can get is 25% of the full BSP. To get the
minimum BSP, you will need to have at least 10 qualifying
years. You will get a proportion of the full BSP of between
25% and 100%, depending on the number of qualifying years you
have.
Reaching SPA on or after 6 April 2010
The full BSP is £102.15 per week. The number of qualifying
years required to get the full BSP reduced to 30 for those
reaching SPA on or after 6 April 2010.
There is no longer a minimum requirement. You will
therefore receive a proportionate BSP for the number of qualifying
years your have. So, if you have 5 qualifying years, you will
receive a BSP of 5/30ths of the full amount.
Claiming on a husband's record
If you do not qualify for a full BSP in your own right on
reaching your SPA, you may be able to claim a higher amount based
on your husband's NI contributions. You may be able to get a BSP of
up to 60% of his. If he receives the full BSP, this equates
to £61.20 a week.
Adult Dependency Increase (ADI)
If your husband receives some BSP and you are financially
dependent on him, he may be able to get extra BSP. You must be
under SPA yourself to be classed as dependent on your
husband. If you are living together, your husband will not be
paid extra BSP if you have earnings or State benefits of
£67.50 per week or more (in 2011/12). If you are living
apart, you cannot have earnings of more than £58.80 per week
(in 2011/12).
From 6 April 2010 it will no longer be possible to claim this
increase. This also applies if you reach State Pension Age before 6
April 2010, but you defer claiming your pension until that date or
later.
If you are already receiving the increase at 6 April 2010 it
will remain in payment, so long as you meet the conditions, up to
April 2020.
Deferral
It is possible to defer claiming your BSP. When you eventually
decide to claim your pension, it will be higher than it would have
been had you claimed it at your SPA. Click here to read more about deferral.
State Pension Age (SPA)
The SPA for women born before 6 April 1950 is 60.
For women born on or after 6 April 1950, the SPA will be higher
than 60 because the Government introduced changes in 2010 to
bring men and women's SPAs in-line with each other.
There are further changes from 2018 to increase SPAs for
men and women to 66.
Click here to use
our Calculator and find your SPA.
Q & A's
If you are unsure of what your pension will be from the State
and you have not yet reached State Pension age you can contact the
Retirement Forecast Team on 0845 3000 168 to obtain a State Pension
forecast. The sooner you get this information, the sooner you can
plan for your retirement.
If you have not paid or been credited with enough NI
contributions it may be possible for you to make voluntary NI
contributions so that you at least receive a reduced basic State
Pension. It is worth looking into paying voluntary NI contributions
and you should ask your local pension centre or social security
office if you are eligible to pay any further NI contributions to
enable you to enhance, or qualify for, a basic State Pension.
Please bear in mind that you can normally only go back 6 tax years
from the date in which the contributions were due.
Any contributions you pay after reaching State Pension age in
respect of years when you had arrears of NI contributions cannot
normally count for payment of State Pension from a date earlier
than the day on which you actually pay the contributions. For more
information get hold of leaflet CA07, Unpaid and late paid
contributions, on 0845 900 0404.
It may be that in certain situations it may not be worth your
while to pay voluntary NI contributions, for example if the amount
you contribute only earns you an amount equal to the basic State
Pension that you could claim already based on your husband's
contributions. Please contact us at TPAS for further guidance.
You should be aware that if you paid Married Women's
Reduced-Rate contributions for the whole of your working lifetime
then this does not entitle you to a basic State Pension in your own
right. However you may be able to claim Pension Credit (see section
entitled Pension Credit) as this is based on you and your partner's
income and capital and not dependent on your NI contribution
record.
See also Voluntary NI
Contributions in our state pensions section.
