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Your state pension forecast explained
Your state pension forecast gives you an idea of how much you can expect to receive and whether you can increase this amount.
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What is a state pension forecast?
You can use the government's free online service to get an idea of how much you will receive when you become eligible for the state pension.
It also provides information about when you'll qualify for the state pension and whether you can increase your payments.
What does a state pension forecast show?
The state pension forecast is based on your National Insurance contributions and any additional state pension you’ve built up.
To qualify for the full amount of new state pension, you'll need to have made 35 years' worth of National Insurance contributions. You'll need to have made at least 10 years' worth to qualify for any state pension.
Your state pension forecast will show:
- The date you’ll get your state pension
- An estimate of how much you’ll get
- How many years of National Insurance contributions are on your record.
Here’s an example of what a forecast looks like:
- Find out more: how much is the state pension?
What if I was contracted out of the state pension?
Before 2016, there was a top-up to the state pension known as the additional state pension.
If you had a private pension, you had the option to 'contract out' of the additional state pension, which involved making reduced National Insurance contributions. Instead of building up your state pension entitlement, you'd receive a boost to your workplace pot.
If you were contracted out, it will say on your state pension forecast, but it won’t include your full contracting out history:
Contracting out affects the amount of state pension you’re entitled to, but the private pension that you were contracted out to should include an amount equal to what you would have received, had you not contracted out. Speak to your pension provider if you’d like an estimate of this entitlement.
- Find out more: what was contracting out?
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Is my state pension forecast accurate?
The state pension forecast gives you an idea of what you can expect to get, but it isn't perfect.
It’s based on current law, meaning it doesn’t take into account any future increases in the state pension or changes to the state pension age.
A 2026 investigation by The Telegraph revealed that up to 800,000 people may have received state pension forecasts that were too high, due to an error in HMRC’s tool that went unfixed for nine years.
The Telegraph investigation found that the state pension forecast tool didn’t take into account any manual adjustments to the records of workers who had contracted out. As a result, many may have received state pension forecasts that were too high and have been incorrectly told that they didn’t need to make more National Insurance contributions to receive the full state pension.
Earlier updates to the tool corrected the error for people reaching state pension age before April 2029. Following an update in February 2026, the fix has been extended to those who will reach state pension age after April 2029.
The Telegraph has reported that those affected by the error will be able to top up any missing National Insurance contributions from when they received the inaccurate forecast, which could go back as far as 2006.
How do I get a state pension forecast?
Online
You can get a state pension forecast online or via the HMRC app.
You'll need a Government Gateway ID or GOV.UK One Login to to sign in. You'll be able to set one up if you don't have one (you'll need your National Insurance Number).
By phone or post
If you reach your state pension age in more than 30 days you can request a state pension forecast by phone or by post.
You can call the Future Pension Centre on 0800 731 0175 and ask for a state pension forecast to be posted to you.
Alternatively, you can download and complete an application form (BR19) and post it to the Future Pension Centre.