Do I qualify for a Basic State
Pension?
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Whether you are entitled to a Basic State Pension or not hinges
on whether you have built up a sufficient number of "Qualifying
Years" which for most people will mean having
paid national insurance contributions for a sufficient number of
years.
The important thing to note about qualifying years is that they
cannot only be obtained by having paid
national insurance (NI)
contributions for that year. Qualifying years can be obtained by any
of the following
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The payment of NI contributions
whilst being in employment. Your earnings will have needed to be
at least equal to the Lower Earnings Limit (The
LEL is presently £79.00
per week (called
Class 1 contributions). This is how the vast
majority of the population will be paying national insurance
contributions.
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The payment of NI contributions
through a period of self employment (called
Class
2 contributions).
All self employed people paying themselves a wage above the
LEL
will be paying this type of national insurance contributions.
-
The payment of additional
contributions designed specifically to increase the level of an
individuals BSP (called
Class
3 contributions). If for example you
gave up work to travel the world then you
might chose to pay class 3 national insurance contributions to
gain a full Basic State Pension. If you were considering doing
this it would be sensible to seek financial advice. Further
details about the payment of Class 3 contributions can be obtained
from your local social security office.
-
Credits due to periods of
unemployment, incapacity, disablement or approved training.
The possibilities above give you a flavour of how you might
obtain a qualifying year but others exist including those when you
may be caring at home. However it is only an overview and determining your number of qualifying years is a pretty tricky,
long winded matter, but if you are interested then read "A
Guide to State Pensions".
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Minimum requirements for a Basic
State Pension
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To qualify for some sort of
Basic State Pension you need at least 10 or 11 qualifying years.
However this minimum level of years will not entitle you to a full
BSP. To see what level of pension your own number of qualifying
years might provide read on...
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