State Pension boosting top-ups blocked for thousands in HMRC error ahead of crucial deadline – but you'll get another chance

Saturday at 11.59pm was the last chance to start the process to check and fill any missing NI gaps between 2006 and 2018 under transitional arrangements put in place when the new State Pension was introduced in 2016. MSE and its founder Martin Lewis had been urging people aged 40 to 73 to check ahead of the deadline as doing so could boost your current/future State Pension by £1,000s, £10,000s or even £100,000s.

You usually need at least 35 full NI years to get the maximum new state pension (currently £230.25 a week). You can earn qualifying years in a range of ways, including through employment or by claiming certain benefits.

Yet thousands of people don't have enough years to claim the full state pension, which is why many consider paying to plug the gaps. Normally, you can only pay to top up the past six years of your NI record.

HMRC's online service went down for those boosting certain years

The Government had said that as long as you started the process of topping up on or by 5 April – either using its online service or by submitting a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) "call-back form" – you'd still be able to purchase NI contributions for the older years in question.

But HMRC has now confirmed that the online service to make payments for the tax years from 2006/07 to 2020/21 was mistakenly taken offline a day prior to planned. This is a problem for the 21,000 people who had logged in on 5 April with payable gaps between 2006/07 and 2020/21.

The issue meant that when people logged onto their State Pension forecast on 5 April, they were met with a message saying the deadline to claim had passed. We were alerted to this when confused MoneySavers sent us tweets and emails, such as the following:

HMRC will contact you directly if you were affected

HMRC told us it will proactively contact those affected by the error to make sure they don't miss out, adding that you don't need to contact DWP or HMRC about the problem. It says it's currently establishing the best way to make contact, though it's unclear how long this will take.

We've pushed for more information on what to do if you think you're impacted but don't hear from HMRC. We'll update this story as soon as we know more, though in the meantime it's worth hanging onto any proof you took of the problems, such as screenshots. And if you don't hear anything, you can try to contact HMRC yourself via its various NI channels.

A HMRC spokesperson said: "We're sorry that customers were unable to use our online service on Saturday to top up National Insurance contributions for years prior to 2021. We will contact anyone affected directly about the payments they wanted to make to ensure they don't miss out."

This issue didn't affect the separate DWP call-back request form. This remained live over the weekend and, if you submitted a request on or before 5 April, you will be called back and still be eligible to purchase your missing years back to 2006. DWP says it's prioritising those at or nearing State Pension age.

You can still boost NI contributions going back six years

The deadline to top-up missing years going back to 2006 had already been extended twice since its original cut-off of April 2023.

But you can still purchase NI credits for the past six tax years, which means you can currently go back to 2019/20.

We go through the steps on checking your state pension forecast and how to fill the gaps (either by paying to top up, or doing so for free) in our Topping up State Pension guide.