State Pension - What are qualifying years all about?

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Hi, I've been in the UK for about 20 years and working for 12 of those and I am a UK passport holder (prior to that I was a stay at home mum raising kids). When I check on the government gateway it says I have "no qualifying" years.
What are qualifying years?

How are they determined as being qualifying or not?

I don't earn a lot but have been paying NI and taxes and filing my tax returns on time etc.
What do I do to ensure I have qualifying years?

thx

To qualify for state pension you have to have 35 years full national insurance contributions paid in.. that's it.

OK what is a 'full national insurance contribution' equal to?

You can calculate this on the hmrc website. They are really useful and have calculators.
It's 35 years at national min wage for a full time equivilant - for full state pension.

That doesn't sound right. I've got qualifying years in years where I didn't earn much.

What sort of income did you have, PAYE or self emplyed?

paye.

Actually.. Did you claim. Child benefit in your name for any children? That would count as qualifying years as it meets the min contributions.

did you claim child benefit during the years when you were a sahm? you should get qualifying years for those if so.

@Oggden1 great minds, eh?

What sort of level of pay were you on? It sounds like there's been a mistake made. It's a pain the arse but I'd call them though wait until after 31 Jan as self assessment tax returns will make all HMRC phone lines busy right now.

Are you employed or self employed? If it is the latter there is more than one type of NI contributions, I think it is the class 3 contributions that give you pension qualifying years but someone who knows more than me will hopefully post an clarify that.

if you have child benefit ( even if it is paid back because you are a high earner this is why it is a good idea to claim it and pay back via PAYE) you get credits until your youngest child is 12
you also get credits while on JSA

you need 35 years between ages 16-67 which is technically 51 years, you can't stop paying NI once you get to 35 years though !!!
you can buy years if you have not enough or there was a year when you only worked vert part time and didn't earn enough to pay NI
if you are self emplyed you can pay about £2.25 a week but it doesn't entitle you to SSP or contribution based JSA etc

Sorry, I missed you saying PAYE, you should qualify if you paid NI then, it is not unheard of for HMRC to make a mistake, if you have your P60s you should be able to challenge it, if not then you might need to do some further research.

Thanks all. I think there must be a mistake in what I can see, I've def paid NI for a long while now.

It's worth the call that's for sure!

When I checked my entitlement I had a confusing result that showed I would have enough years but not the full amount because they weren’t all qualifying years. I phoned the pension service ( number on the gov.uk site under Contact the Pension Service 0800 731 0469) and they were very helpful and talked me through it. I did some calculations and decided to make up the shortfall with a one off lump sum National Insurance payment that then gets paid through HMRC.

maybe if part time you were not earning enough you need to earn £166 a week then you pay 12%

Sounds like there has been some mistake somewhere. Give them a ring (make sure you have your national insurance number to hand when you do!). I worked abroad for a few years and wanted to pay for some years which took lots of phone calls and letters before they finally managed it and now it looks right when I log on.

is your employer a big company that definitely knows how to do NI correctly and would be far too reputable to try to fiddle the numbers?

it's not unheard of for a dodgy employer to claim to be deducting NI but actually just pocketing the deduction and keeping the employee off the books. do you have proper p60 forms from each tax year when NI was deducted?

You said in your OP that you completed tax returns. If you have only worked PAYE why did you do self-assessment tax returns? Other income/investments? Is your NI number on your payslip correct?

Thanks all, very helpful. I think all is right from my side, I'll call the pensions advisory and the HMRC relevant department and get to the bottom of it.

thx

I called them up about an issue and they were really helpful good luck

My phone just gave me this article www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-7873583/amp/How-qualifying-years-state-pension-worked-out.html

It made me wonder if your pay is variable over the year so it may have caused this? The system doesn't seem to work for people with fluctuations in their pay which is quite worrying given the number of zero or low hour contracts.