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20 May 2024

Government launches new online voluntary National Insurance payments tool

The Check your state pension forecast tool from HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been enhanced to make it a fully end-to-end solution where taxpayers can check their pension forecast and make voluntary payments.

This allows the majority of taxpayers under state pension age to view gaps in their national insurance (NI) record and pay voluntary contributions to fill them. 

Taxpayers can check how much their state pension could increase if they made voluntary national insurance contributions (NIC) and how much they would need to pay to achieve this. 

They can then use the new service to choose which years they would like to pay to fill, pay securely through the service and receive an email confirmation that their payment has been received and that their NI record will be updated.

The tool can be accessed via the Check your state pension forecast webpage on gov. uk or the HMRC app. Taxpayers can log in to the new service using their personal tax account login details. Those without an online HMRC account need to register on gov.uk.

The new service is available to most taxpayers, including those living abroad wishing to pay voluntary contributions for years they were resident in the UK. 

However, it is currently unavailable to those already receiving their state pension, the self-employed, or taxpayers currently living outside the UK with gaps incurred while working abroad. They will continue to manage their NICs as before.

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