Claiming the State Pension isn’t compulsory the moment you reach State Pension age. You can choose to put it off, and a fair number of people do – Royal London data published on 28 January 2026 found that almost 42,000 people deferred their State Pension in 2023/24, with one in four of them delaying for five years or more. Delaying can work in your favour in the right circumstances, but it isn’t automatically the better choice, and it’s worth understanding both sides before you decide.
A quick recap: what is the State Pension, and what does deferring mean?
The State Pension is a regular payment from the government that you can claim from State Pension age onwards, for the rest of your life. The State Pension age is currently 66, and is already legislated to rise to 67 by 2028 and 68 by 2046. The full rate of the new State Pension is £241.30 a week in 2026/27, though what you personally receive depends on your National Insurance record – you can check your own position using the government’s State Pension forecast service.
We’ve covered how qualifying years, claiming and annual increases work in more detail in our broader guide to the State Pension.
Deferring simply means not claiming straight away. There’s nothing you need to fill in to do this – if you don’t make a claim, your pension is automatically treated as deferred.
The case for delaying
A permanently higher income once you do claim
For every nine weeks you defer, your eventual State Pension increases by 1% – equivalent to just under 5.8% for a full year. Based on the current £241.30 a week rate, deferring for a full year would add around £13.99 a week once you start claiming, for the rest of your life.
How you receive the deferred amount depends on when you reached State Pension age. If that was on or after 6 April 2016, you can normally claim a backdated payment of up to 52 weeks when you do claim, on top of your ongoing higher rate. If you reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016 and deferred for at least 12 months, you may instead be able to take a one-off lump sum, which includes interest at 2% above the Bank of England base rate.
It could reduce your tax bill while you’re still earning
If you’re still working past State Pension age, or drawing an income from investments, savings or another pension, adding the State Pension on top could push more of your income into a higher tax band than necessary. The State Pension counts as taxable income, so for some people, deferring it until other income sources have wound down can be a sensible way to manage their overall tax position – though this depends entirely on individual circumstances, so it’s worth checking rather than assuming.
The case against delaying
You might not live long enough to come out ahead
The government’s own figures state that it takes over 15 years to recover 52 weeks’ worth of deferred new State Pension through the higher payments – and this recovery period grows by roughly another year for every additional 52 weeks you defer. In other words, deferring only pays off if you go on to live a good number of years past the point you eventually claim. For some people that’s a reasonable bet; for others, taking the income sooner and putting it to use makes more sense.
A bigger pension later could mean a bigger tax bill later
The Personal Allowance – the amount you can earn before paying Income Tax – is £12,570 in 2026/27, and has been frozen at that level for several years. The full new State Pension alone comes to £12,547.60 a year, sitting only just under that threshold. Deferring to receive a higher weekly amount makes it more likely that your State Pension, combined with any other income, will tip you over the Personal Allowance and into paying tax on it – and a higher income in retirement can also affect your eligibility for means-tested benefits.
If you’d like to talk through whether delaying makes sense for your own circumstances, we’re always happy to have a no-obligation conversation.
Weighing it up as part of your wider plan
There’s no universal right answer here – it comes down to your health and family longevity, how much other income you have, your tax position now versus in future, and what you’d otherwise do with the money. Because deferral happens automatically simply by not claiming, it’s easy to let the decision drift rather than actively choose it, which is why it’s worth treating it as a deliberate part of your retirement planning rather than an afterthought.
As financial planners based in Poole and working with clients across Dorset and beyond, we can help you model whether deferring your State Pension – and by how long – genuinely works in your favour, alongside your wider pension and tax position. Get in touch to find out how we can help you make the most of what you’ve worked hard to build.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute advice. The information is aimed at individuals only. All information is correct at the time of writing and is subject to change in the future. Please do not act based on anything in this article.