This page works the numbers on voluntary National Insurance: what a missing year costs to fill, what it adds to the state pension for life, and the checks that come before any money moves. It exists because this is one of the strongest returns in UK personal finance for the people it fits, and a pure waste of £956.80 for the people it does not.
A full new state pension, £12,548 a year in 2026/27, requires 35 qualifying years of National Insurance. Fewer years means a proportional slice: each qualifying year is worth about £358 a year of pension, for life, uprated. Ten years is the minimum for any state pension at all.
Years usually accumulate invisibly through work or credits: employment above the threshold, child benefit years, carer years, some benefit years. Gaps appear from career breaks, low-paid years, self-employment that skipped voluntary payments, and years abroad. The rules allow missing years from the past six tax years to be filled voluntarily, at Class 3 rates, or at the far cheaper Class 2 rate for the self-employed. That purchase is what this page prices.
One missing year filled at the 2026/27 Class 3 rate costs £18.40 a week, £956.80 for the year. Bought back, it adds one thirty-fifth of the full pension: about £358.51 a year, every year, from state pension age.
| Class 3 (most people) | Class 2 (self-employed) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of one year | £956.80 (£18.40 a week) | £189.80 (£3.65 a week) |
| State pension bought | about £358.51 a year, for life, uprated | |
| Payback, before tax | 2.7 years | under 7 months |
| Payback, basic-rate taxpayer | 3.4 years | under 9 months |
| Received over 20 years of retirement | £7,170 gross · £5,736 after basic-rate tax, per year purchased, before uprating | |
Read as an annuity, this is the arithmetic that makes advisers sit up: £956.80 buying an index-linked £358 a year is a rate no insurer offers at ordinary prices. The honest frame is longevity: the purchase pays back only while its owner is alive to collect, so it is, mildly, a bet on living a few years past state pension age, 66 now and 67 by 2028. Past the payback point, every further year is profit; before it, an early death makes the purchase a loss. That is not a reason against, just the actual shape of the deal.
Information and guidance only. Not personal advice. Whether a top-up helps depends entirely on an individual NI record, which this page cannot see. The checks below come before any payment. Verify decisions with a qualified FCA-authorised adviser, and with the Future Pension Centre, before acting.
The same £956.80 buys £358 a year, or nothing at all, depending on facts already fixed in the buyer's NI record. The failure cases are specific and worth naming.
| Situation | What a top-up does |
|---|---|
| Gaps, and fewer than 35 years by state pension age | The fit case. Each filled year adds about £358 a year for life. |
| Already on course for 35 years through future work | Nothing. Years still to be worked will fill the record for free; paying now buys years that would have accrued anyway. |
| Already at the full amount | Nothing. The pension cannot exceed the full rate; extra years are money burned. |
| Contracted-out years before 2016 | It depends. Old contracting-out deductions mean some filled years add less than the headline, or nothing. This is the classic trap, and exactly what the forecast call resolves. |
| Eligible for free credits | Overpayment. Child benefit years, carer years and some benefit years credit the record without payment; buying them wastes the whole cost. |
One more direction worth knowing exists rather than working here: deferring. Claiming the state pension later than state pension age increases it for each year deferred, under its own rules with its own break-even, a different decision for a different page. The purchase decision on this page is only about filling the record that determines the starting amount.
Because the failure cases above are invisible from the outside, the sequence matters more than the arithmetic. Both checks are free and official.
The first is the state pension forecast on GOV.UK ("Check your State Pension forecast"), which shows the amount already earned, the amount on course, and each gap year with its exact fill cost, some part-years cost far less than £956.80. The second, for anyone at or near state pension age or with pre-2016 contracted-out history, is a call to the Future Pension Centre, which confirms whether a specific year would actually increase the pension before it is bought. HMRC's online service now handles many payments directly from the forecast page. Buying blind skips both checks, and the trap cases above are common enough that skipping is how the strongest deal in UK pensions becomes a donation to the Exchequer.
Methodology. Year value: £12,548 ÷ 35 = £358.51. Costs: £18.40 × 52 = £956.80; £3.65 × 52 = £189.80. Payback: £956.80 ÷ £358.51 = 2.7 years pre-tax; £956.80 ÷ (£358.51 × 0.8) = 3.4 years at basic rate. Twenty years collected: £358.51 × 20 = £7,170 gross, £5,736 at basic rate, per year purchased, before uprating. All arithmetic machine-checked before publication. Published 8 August 2026 · figures last verified 8 August 2026.
Sonuswealth is pre-launch. The app holds the state pension alongside every other pot, so decisions like this one sit in the whole picture instead of a leaflet.