Transfer of Child Benefit NI credits to grandparent to improve grandparent's state pension

[ExOptimist]

I have only just discovered this highly beneficial piece of legislation when looking at my pension situation.

I'm Grandma in my early sixties, a few years off state retirement age, already receive a private pension. For various reasons I do not, and won't have, 35 years of NI to enable me to get the full state pension.

However, there's a way of boosting your eligible years if you have done childcare for your grandchild( under 12 years old) in any periods since 2011. If the child's parent claims Child Benefit and pays NI through working they in effect have double NI credits. For any periods you have cared for your grandchild, with mutual agreement, you can claim to have the "spare" NI credits from their child benefit transferred to you, thereby increasing your eligible years for state pension. There is no minimum amount of caring, you just have to state that you did it.

Claims can be backdated to 2011. My claim will mean that I'll get 9 extra years added to my eligible pension years, which is going to give me hundreds of pounds more in state pension every month than I would otherwise receive.

All you need to do is fill in the relevant form on gov.uk and you and the child benefit recipient both sign.

I wasn't aware of this until last week so there may be other grandparents in a similar situation who could benefit.

Really interesting. I looked this up. There is no minimum amount of care required but the child in question must be under 12 in each year you’re claiming. So will need to have been at least two children if you’re claiming for 2011-2026.
Thanks for posting. Very useful for people who weren’t working and were providing grandchild care.

I have done this. MIL got £5k lump sum & pension increased by around £80/wk

Can I ask how you do this??

How on earth do they possibly prove which grandparents have been caring for grandchildren and which haven’t (and are just saying they did to boost their pension)?

If you Google it the relevant form on gov.uk should come up. You give your details, child details, child benefit recipient details, periods of caring, both have to sign, then submit it. It's very straightforward and easy.

No proof of caring required.

However the parent of the grandchild, i.e. the recipient of the child benefit, has to also sign the declaration that the grandparent cared for the grandchild in the relevant periods and that they're happy to give their NI credits to the grandparent.

I suppose there is potential for fraud but it must be pretty minimal.

The form is an HMRC form number CA9176.

OP, if you are in your sixties, it's not a given that you'll need 35 NI years to get the full state pension - that only applies to people falling entirely under the new system (i.e.e born this century). The years you need could be more or less depending on your individual circumstances and your NI record prior to the introduction of the new State Pension in 2016 (e.g. whether you were contracted in or out).

so you need to check your individual forecast her to see how many years you need to fill.

Check your State Pension forecast - GOV.UK

Yes, I already did that because I had a letter telling me when I would get state pension and so I looked at my pension forecast which explains the maximum I could get and what I could do to improve.

I could buy extra years of NI at over £900 per year, but instead I chose to save many thousands and get those years by using the child benefit transfer for no cost. The transfer also enables me to get credit for several extra years as one can only buy NI credits for the previous 6 years whereas it is possible to claim the transfer right back to 2011 if one was caring for a grandchild under 12 in those years.

@ExOptimist thank you!!

Thank you! Just gone through and it looks like I can transfer 4 years to my MIL which will make a good difference to her. Off to find the forms...

I did this for my mum, made a huge difference to her pension, although of course not as much difference as she made to me by looking after my kids in that period so I could work towards my dream career ❤️ but it was nice to be able to do it for her!

Just to confirm, if a grandparent provides care 1 day a week but works the other 4 (therefore paying NI), then they would not need to do this. Is that right?

If the grandparent is paying NI then they would presumably have enough of their own NI contributions to give them credit, so would not need to have a transfer.

Exactly this for my MIL - hopefully it will help her and since they will backdate it to when she started claiming SP in 2014, she should get a lump sum as well which will really help her on top.

Sounds good.

Been claiming this for the last 9 years as look after grandkids almost everyday since retiring,it is specifically for people who have effectively stopped paying NI, ie not working, in order to look after grandkids.Despite working full time for 35 years plus a couple before that where I had full NI credits, i was still substantially short for full state pension( I’d truly love to understand how it’s worked out) It’s simple to claim but do be aware you cannot claim for the previous year until after the October of the year you put form in, so for 24/25, don’t put form in until this October and also be aware it takes HMRC absolutely ages to actually process( put form in for 21/22 and 22/23 in August last year and they say I won’t get any response until August this year at the earliest)

Yes, I've done this. I was 5 years short on my full state pension as I was self employed for several years. My daughter kindly supported my claim and I have now made up those years just in time as i'm 65 this year (so, 2 more years until state pension)
Just bear in mind you can't claim until after the 31st October for the previous April-April tax year

Update: just had confirmation from HMRC that my claim has been successful. My pension forecast states that I now only need one more year of NI credits( which will be the current tax year) to give me a full state pension. It's meant that I'll now get thousands more a year in state pension than I would have done otherwise.

An excellent result for a few minutes applying.

Thank you very much for this, @ExOptimist
For anyone who'd like to find out more, I've found a MoneySavingExpert article that details it: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2017/01/grandparents-who-help-with-childcare-at-risk-of-missing-out-on-full-state-pension---act-now-to-protect-it/

@Hoogieflip The change in pension for me is very much more dramatic than in that article( even accounting for it being a number of years old). The increase in my pension forecast before and after my claim is over £4k per annum for the whole of my retirement, which will make a significant difference.

Great news!

Good news, out of interest , when did you put your form in , mine was acknowledged as being received last August, but the site is clear it will be at least this August before they actually confirm entitlement

When I submitted it their website said it would be about a year before they would deal with it so I put it out of my mind.

So it was quite a shock to receive the letter confirming my entitlement for the last 10 years.

They seem very efficient indeed: submitted the claim on 27 February 2026 and their letter of confirmation is dated 24 March.

There's an obvious/built in prevention of fraud here. If someone's used a tax free childcare account or UC childcare benefits to pay full time nursery, but then also claims to transfer credits to grandma on the basis she's done 5 days a week childcare, it will quickly get flagged that one or the other isn't true.