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Thousands of Brits were reportedly barred from topping up their state pensions ahead of a crucial deadline, putting them at risk of missing out on a boost to their retirement funds. The April 5 deadline marked the last chance for people aged between 40 and 73 to fill gaps in their National Insurance (NI) records to maximise state pension claims dating back to 2006. Around 21,000 people logged onto the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) portal on Saturday, April 5, according to MoneySavingExpert.com (MSM), in a bid to record qualifying years of receiving NI, including through employment and benefit claims, to meet the 35-year threshold for receiving the full pension allowance.
Those counting on topping up their pension pots at the last minute were rudely surprised by the online service for recording payable gaps between 2006/7 and 2020/21 going offline a day early, however, leaving them unable to secure NI payments for the years in question. HMRC confirmed that the portal had been wrongly closed before the deadline, telling MSM that anyone impacted by the outage would be contacted directly to ensure they don’t miss out.
Social media users complained about the issue on the weekend, with one writing: “Unfortunately, it seems that the Government closed the portal for NI top-ups ahead of [the] deadline! Shame they didn’t stick to their own published deadline of today”.
A spokesperson for HMRC said: “We’re sorry that customers were unable to use our online service on Saturday to top up National Insurance contributions for years prior to 2021. We will contact anyone affected directly about the payments they wanted to make to ensure they don’t miss out.”
Eligible UK residents were given until April 5 to check their NI record and fill any gaps dating back to April 6, 2006, with any voluntary NI contributions thereafter only accepted for the last six tax years, currently to 2019/20.
The digital top-up service was launched in April 2024, with around 120,000 people filing over 260,000 years worth of NI gaps in the intervening months, according to HMRC data.
Filling NI gaps can boost current and future state pensions by up to the tens of thousands, MSM reports.
People were also able to discuss paying voluntary NI contributions through an online callback request form submitted to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), also due by April 5.
The Government previously said the callback form, which allowed those who completed it by the deadline to make top-up payments after April 5, ensured that “no one misses out” and was a means of managing high levels of demand.
