Check Your National Insurance Record and Fix the Gaps

You can check your National Insurance record free on GOV.UK using your Government Gateway login — it lists every tax year since you turned 16 and flags any year that is not "full". Gaps only matter if they stop you reaching the number of qualifying years you need for the State Pension, so always read your record alongside your State Pension forecast before you consider paying anything.

In 2026/27 the full new State Pension is £241.30 a week and it normally takes 35 qualifying years to get it, with a minimum of 10 years to get anything at all.

Key points

• Check your record at gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record and your forecast at gov.uk/check-state-pension.
• A gap is harmless if future working years will still get you to the full amount by State Pension age.
• Free National Insurance credits (for parents, carers and some benefit claimants) beat paying cash — check those first.
• Voluntary Class 3 costs £18.40 a week, roughly £956.80 for a full year; each extra year adds about £6.89 a week to a new State Pension.
• Rules for people with contributions before 6 April 2016 are different, so the 35-year figure is a guide, not a guarantee.

How to check your National Insurance record

Two separate GOV.UK services matter here, and people often look at only one of them.

1. The record itself

The Check your National Insurance record service shows, tax year by tax year:

• which years are full (a qualifying year);
• which years are not full, and how much National Insurance is missing;
• which years you may still be able to pay for, and the cost;
• any years made up of credits rather than contributions.

You need a Government Gateway account or the HMRC app to see it. If you have never registered, you will need your National Insurance number plus ID such as a passport, payslip or P60.

2. The forecast

The Check your State Pension forecast service tells you what you have built up so far, what you are on track for if you keep contributing, and your State Pension age. This is the number that decides whether a gap is a problem. The same service now lets many people see the cost of filling specific years and pay online.

A common cause of a surprise gap is a year where you worked but earned below the Class 1 primary threshold (£12,570 in 2026/27) across the whole year, or were self-employed with profits under the small profits threshold of £7,105 and did not pay voluntary Class 2. Part-year gaps also appear when you switched jobs, were abroad, or were on a career break without claiming any benefit.

How many years of National Insurance do you need?

On that basis each qualifying year is worth about £241.30 ÷ 35 = £6.89 a week, or around £358 a year, up to the full rate.

The important caveat: if you were paying National Insurance before 6 April 2016, your entitlement was worked out as a "starting amount" when the new State Pension began, taking account of the old basic and additional pension and any period when you were contracted out of the additional pension. That means some people need more than 35 years to reach the full rate, and others are already at or above it with fewer. Your forecast is the only reliable answer for you — the 35-year rule alone can mislead.

Credits first, then voluntary contributions

Before paying anything, work out whether a gap can be filled for free. National Insurance credits are as good as contributions for State Pension purposes.

• Child Benefit — the person who claims Child Benefit for a child under 12 gets credits. If the higher earner claimed instead of the parent at home, or the family opted out because of the High Income Child Benefit Charge (which applies between £60,000 and £80,000 of adjusted net income in 2026/27), credits may have gone to the wrong person or not been claimed at all. You can claim Child Benefit at a zero rate purely to get the credits.
• Home Responsibilities Protection — for periods before April 2010, HMRC has been correcting records where HRP was missing, mainly affecting women who claimed Child Benefit in the 1980s and 1990s. See gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp.
• Grandparents and other family carers — Specified Adult Childcare Credits let a working parent's unused credits be transferred to a relative who looks after a child under 12.
• Carers — Carer's Credit covers those caring at least 20 hours a week, and Carer's Allowance brings credits with it.
• Benefit claimants — Universal Credit, Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and statutory maternity, paternity or sick pay periods generally bring credits.

Credits are often backdatable, so a gap from years ago can sometimes still be closed at no cost.

If credits do not apply: voluntary contributions

Voluntary National Insurance comes in two classes:

• Class 3 — £18.40 a week, so about £956.80 for a full year. This is the standard route for employees and anyone not trading.
• Class 2 — £3.65 a week, about £189.80 a year. Far cheaper, but only available to some people, mainly the self-employed with profits below the £7,105 small profits threshold and certain people working abroad.

You can normally only pay for the last six tax years. The extended window that allowed people to fill gaps going back to 2006 closed on 5 April 2025, so older years are generally gone for good.

Is buying years worth it?

The arithmetic is usually attractive — but only if the extra year actually increases your forecast. Two examples show the difference.

Example 1: the gap that does not matter

Priya is 54 with 29 qualifying years and three "not full" years on her record. She plans to work another eight years before State Pension age. Those eight years take her to 37 qualifying years, comfortably past 35. Her forecast already shows the full £241.30 a week if she keeps contributing. Filling the three gaps at £956.80 each — £2,870 — would buy her nothing.

Example 2: the gap that pays back fast

Tom is 62, has stopped working, and has 30 qualifying years. His forecast shows £206.83 a week against the full £241.30, and five payable gap years.

1. Cost: 5 × £956.80 = £4,784.
2. Extra pension: 5 × £6.89 = £34.47 a week, which is £1,792 a year.
3. Payback: £4,784 ÷ £1,792 = 2.7 years of retirement.
4. Over a 20-year retirement, before any future uprating, that is roughly £35,800 of extra gross pension.

Two things trim the headline gain. First, the State Pension is taxable income, so if your total income exceeds your Personal Allowance of £12,570 the real benefit is the after-tax figure — 80% of it for a basic-rate taxpayer. Scottish taxpayers pay Scottish rates on pension income, which start at 19% and reach 48%, so the after-tax value differs slightly north of the border. Second, you have to live long enough to collect, and payment stops on death unless protected payments or inheritance rules apply to your particular pension.

Our step-by-step decision tool on whether to buy State Pension years walks through the checks in order — forecast first, credits second, cash last. To put your own numbers in, use the State Pension top-up calculator, and for the full trade-off including tax and life expectancy read is a State Pension top-up worth it.

Fixing errors rather than gaps

Not every missing year is a genuine gap. Records can be wrong if an employer reported earnings under the wrong National Insurance number, if you changed your name, or if credits were never applied. If a year looks wrong, contact the National Insurance helpline with payslips, P60s or benefit letters for that year. Errors are corrected free; do not pay voluntary contributions for a year you believe you already qualified for until HMRC has looked at it.

What to do next

Pull up your National Insurance record and your State Pension forecast in the same sitting, write down your qualifying years and the shortfall, then check whether free credits cover any gap. If a real shortfall remains, run the numbers through the State Pension top-up calculator and follow the buy State Pension years decision guide before you pay HMRC anything.