Qualifying for a State Pension

The conditions for getting the state pension were amended by the Pensions Act 2007 and mainly affected people reaching state pension age on or after 6 April 2010. The changes introduced partly as a result of the fact that less than 25% of women were entitled to a full state pension.

Currently a woman with a working life of 44 years will need 39 qualifying years for a full pension and a man with a working life of 49 years will need 44 qualifying years.

From 6 April 2010 the number of qualifying years for a full basic state pension is reduced to 30. A qualifying year is each tax year in which enough national insurance was paid or treated as paid or credited as contributed. Each qualifying year is worth 1/30th of the full basic state pension.

Those with very few qualifying years will be able to secure some basic state pension.