We will normally respond to your enquiry within 48 hours of receipt. Our advisers will point you in the right direction. Any amount above this is subject to a tax charge of 25% if paid as income or 55% if paid as a lump sum. The pension contribution limit is currently 100% of your income, with a cap of £40,000. All employers are now required to automatically enrol all eligible workers into a pension scheme. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in.

The maximum you can pay is £2,880 a year. How long will your money last in retirement? If you’re a UK resident under the age of 75, you can add money to a pension and receive tax relief, even if you don’t Looking after your dependants in retirement, Getting professional help if you are worried about savings, investments or pensions, Help if you are worried about your savings, investments or pension, Pensioner bonds: a guide to the fixed-rate savings bonds for over-65s, Understanding what Pension Wise is and how to use it. Similarly, if you earn £60,000 and want to put that amount in your pension scheme in a single year, you’ll normally only get tax relief on £40,000. Generally, the maximum amount that can be contributed to your pension is £40,000 including tax relief and employer contributions. Tax relief is added to your contribution so if you pay £2,880, a total of £3,600 a year will be paid into your pension scheme, even if you earn less than this or have no income at all. As a basic guide though, the main situations when you’ll trigger the MPAA are: And you won’t normally trigger it if you: You can’t carry over any unused MPAA to another tax year. adjusted income is broadly your total taxable income, plus any pension contributions paid by your employer. Give us a call for free and impartial money advice. More about employer pension contributions. Generally, the maximum amount that can be contributed in total from all sources (for example you and your employer)

cash in small pension pots valued at less than £10,000. There’s an annual limit for contributions as mentioned above and a lifetime allowance which limits the total value of all your pensions. Workplace pensions, automatic enrolment and tax relief, ‘Tapered annual allowance’ in Pensions and retirement jargon buster, Read our guide on The Lifetime Allowance for pension pots, Automatic enrolment into a workplace pension scheme, How much Income Tax and National Insurance you should pay, Talking money with young people in Scotland, Why we keep money secrets in relationships, according to Relate, Pension information: guide to the basic facts, Transferring defined contribution pensions, Transferring out of a defined benefit pension scheme, Trace lost pensions and request pension forecasts, How to deal with a gap in your pension savings, Check the progress of your pension and retirement savings, Dealing with pension problems and making a complaint, Individual and Fixed Protection 2014 schemes for pension savings, Defined benefit pension schemes explained, Workplace pension contribution calculator, Automatic enrolment – what to expect from your employer, Automatic enrolment if you earn up to £10,000, Automatic enrolment if you’re 21 or under, Automatic enrolment if you're close to retirement, Automatic enrolment if you're above State Pension age, Tax relief and your workplace pension scheme.

If you have earnings of £110,000 p.a. internet browsers with JavaScript.

If you have a defined contribution pension, and you start to draw money from it, the annual allowance reduces to £4,000 in some situations (see, The Money Purchase Annual Allowance, below). To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. wellbeing and our community we're If you’re a UK resident aged under 75 you may receive tax relief on your contributions to registered pension schemes. Ask your employer about your pension scheme rules. work or pay tax. your employer), Any benefits you build up in a final salary scheme.

If you’ve already built up a large pension pot, you might be able to register for protection with HMRC so you don’t Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. Thinking of leaving your workplace pension scheme? The MPAA only applies to contributions to defined contribution pensions and not defined benefit pension schemes. This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. More about this below. article's content and its accuracy. You’ll only pay tax if you go above the annual allowance. However, you can carry forward unused allowances from the previous three years, as long as you were a member of a pension scheme during those years. How could getting divorced affect my pension and retirement income? If you put more than this into your pension, you won’t receive … Pension and tax rules can change, but as a rule of thumb, if you want to retire at 65, you should consider saving an annual percentage of your salary that’s equal to at least half your age when you start saving. Any amount of pension savings over the annual allowance will be liable to the annual allowance charge. Tax relief is limited to relief on contributions up to the higher of: From 6 April 2016 your annual allowance will be reduced if your adjusted income for the tax year is more than the adjusted income limit. Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details. © Copyright 2020 The Money Advice Service 120 Holborn, London EC1N 2TD.

For example, if you earn £20,000 but put £25,000 into your pension pot (perhaps by topping up earnings with some savings), you’ll only get tax relief on £20,000. If you're not sure which It's currently £1,073,100 in the 2020/21 tax year. Our advisers will point you in the right direction. Taking control of debt, free debt advice, improving your credit score and low-cost borrowing, Renting, buying a home and choosing the right mortgage, Running a bank account, planning your finances, cutting costs, saving money and getting started with investing, Understanding your employment rights, dealing with redundancy, benefit entitlements and Universal Credit, Planning your retirement, automatic enrolment, types of pension and retirement income, Having a baby, divorce and separation, what to do when someone’s died, choosing and paying for care services, Buying, running and selling a car, buying holiday money and sending money abroad, Protecting your home and family with the right insurance policies, Coronavirus Money Guidance Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays, closed. This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-pension-schemes/pension-schemes-rates. each tax year is £40,000. whichever is greater. You can also save into a pension for your children or grandchildren. Start a webchat online or call us on 0800 138 1677. Our general email address is If you want to make a pension contribution above the amount you earn, your employer might be able to help. across all your pensions and receive tax relief. From how to access your account online, scam awareness, your Remember, to receive tax relief, your personal contributions can’t be any higher than your earnings. 75, or you die before 75. (post-pension contributions) (known as ‘threshold income’) you will not be affected by the TAA. This applies where the scheme member has flexibly accessed any of their pension benefits and was introduced on 6 April 2015. Whether the MPAA applies depends on how you access your pension pot and there are some complicated rules around this. Any contributions you make over this limit won’t attract tax relief and will be added to your other income and be subject to Income Tax at the rate(s) that applies to you. here to help. The maximum you can pay is £2,880 a year. We may not share

Ways to boost your pension in the run-up to retirement. get caught out by this restriction. pensions.

Pension contributions. For the tax year 2020-21 the MPAA is £4,000. For example, if your salary in the current tax year is £30,000, this is the most you can add The maximum reduction was £30,000 meaning that anyone earning over £210,000 had their annual allowance capped at £10,000.

Try and maintain this percentage as your earnings increase. the views of the author. For more information on this see our guide, - Get free trusted guidance and links to direct support, Clear English Award - Opens in a new window, Money manager for Universal Credit claimants, Workplace pensions contribution calculator, Tax relief on your annual pension contributions, The Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA).

Understand and compare income drawdown tool, Taking small cash sums from your pension pot, Using your pension pot to buy a lifetime annuity, Higher retirement income for people with poor health, Pension drawdown: Using your pension pot for a flexible retirement income, Key questions to ask your financial adviser. However, the maximum gross contribution you can make into a personal pension during the current tax year (2019/20) and still receive tax-relief is either £40,000 or 100% of your total earnings – whichever is lower. investments are right for you, please request advice, for example from our, Register for online If you’re a UK taxpayer, in the tax year 2020-21 the standard rule is that you’ll get tax relief on pension contributions of up to 100% of your earnings or a £40,000 annual allowance, whichever is lower. This is the total amount you can have in all your pensions together over your life without incurring a tax charge. Getting tax relief on pensions means some of your money that would have gone to the government as tax goes into your pension instead.