State pension: 30 or 35 years of contribution required?

paddysreturn

Thank you all for your responses.

@Xylophone, that is indeed where I got my info. 

Im now comfortable that im using the right page 

molerat

The fact that it has taken you 30 years is purely coincidental.  At April 2016 you were given a £ figure and that was put into your pension pot, the number of years were pretty much irrelevant, it was that £ amount that mattered.  After 2016 you could add to that amount at a set figure for each year.  It is just coincidence that the 2 parts add up to 30.

bostonerimus

Just before the start of the new flat rate SP I got a letter from HMRC saying that I would now need 35 years of NI to get full SP rather than the 30 years. I pay voluntary NI and so I just resigned my self to a few more years. I have now made 37 years of voluntary NI contributions and just got a nice letter from HMRC advising me to look at my pension forecast to see if I should continue to pay. I might stop or I might just pay until I get 40 just in case the rules change again.

So the rules are complicated and the best thing to do is to look at your pension forecast.

Mish_Mash

Well that’s depressing. I’ve just checked my pension record. It says that I have 27 full years of contributions and require another 10 years to qualify for a state pension of £185. That will be 37 years of contributions. 😭😭😭

I had been planning on another 8 years to take me to 35 years and I would then take early retirement. Rug has been pulled out from under me now. 😭 Very useful thread though as forewarned is forearmed. 

Silvertabby

Mish_Mash said:

Well that’s depressing. I’ve just checked my pension record. It says that I have 27 full years of contributions and require another 10 years to qualify for a state pension of £185. That will be 37 years of contributions. 😭😭😭

I had been planning on another 8 years to take me to 35 years and I would then take early retirement. Rug has been pulled out from under me now. 😭 Very useful thread though as forewarned is forearmed. 

You can still retire as planned and then pay 2 years of voluntary Class 3s.

If it makes you feel any better, I needed 48 years (44 from working, 4 from voluntary Class 3s) of contributions in order to qualify for the full nsp.  Not that I am complaining, though - I consider myself to be one of the winners under the new scheme.

eskbanker

Mish_Mash said:

Well that’s depressing. I’ve just checked my pension record. It says that I have 27 full years of contributions and require another 10 years to qualify for a state pension of £185. That will be 37 years of contributions. 😭😭😭

I had been planning on another 8 years to take me to 35 years and I would then take early retirement. Rug has been pulled out from under me now. 😭 Very useful thread though as forewarned is forearmed. 

If a potential annual shortfall of no more than about £0.5K makes a significant difference to your plans to take early retirement, I'd suggest that you haven't given yourself anything like enough room for manoeuvre and are cutting things very fine, or was that just hyperbole?