I am not a financial advisor and nothing in this post constitutes financial advice. All investments carry risk and the value of your investments can go down as well as up. Please do your own research and consider seeking independent financial advice before making any investment decisions.
Last reviewed: 1 November 2026
I’m 52 and I still pay into my SIPP every month, so the pension annual allowance is a number I keep an eye on. It’s the cap on how much can go into your pensions each year with tax relief, and the headline figure is £60,000.
The years I didn’t pay in matter more to me. I took a four year career break at 36 and put nothing into a pension for those four years. Then I worked part time for three years, paying into an employer pension on a part time salary. By the time I gathered three old pots into one SIPP at 45, the question on my mind was the one you might be asking now: how much can I put in to make up for it?
If you’re catching up after time out, two quieter rules matter far more than £60,000. Tax relief on what you pay in stops at what you earn. And you can pay in £3,600 a year even with no earnings at all. I’ve never come close to £60,000, so this guide starts with the rules that shape what women like us can actually do.
Table of Contents
The short answer
For 2026/27, up to £60,000 a year can go into your pensions with tax relief, but your own contributions only get relief on up to 100% of your earnings. With no earnings, you can still pay in £3,600 gross (£2,880 from you, plus £720 tax relief). Unused allowance from the previous three tax years can be carried forward. All of this is correct at the time of writing, under current rules.
What is the pension annual allowance?
Gov.uk describes it as the most you can save in your pension pots in a tax year before you have to pay tax, and for 2026/27 it’s £60,000. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, so the allowance resets every April.
Three things count towards it, and the second and third surprise people.
Your own contributions. Whatever you pay into a workplace pension or a SIPP.
Your employer’s contributions. Every pound your employer adds counts too, as MoneyHelper confirms.
The tax relief. If you pay £80 into a SIPP and your provider claims £20 from HMRC, that’s £100 against your allowance, not £80. I’ve walked through how that top up works in my guide to what a SIPP is.
It’s one allowance across all your pensions, so a workplace pension, an old pot and a SIPP share the same £60,000. If you have a final salary (defined benefit) pension, it’s the growth in your promised benefits that counts, and your scheme can tell you that figure.
How much can I pay into my pension?
The rule that matters most if you’re starting late is this one. You can get tax relief on personal contributions worth up to 100% of your annual earnings, or £3,600 if that’s higher. HMRC’s own manual calls the £3,600 the basic amount, and “earnings” means things like salary, wages, bonuses and self employed profits. A pension you’re already drawing doesn’t count as earnings.
On a part time salary of £15,000, you can pay in up to £15,000 gross with tax relief, which is £12,000 from you once basic rate relief is added, even though the pension annual allowance is four times that.
| Your situation | Example earnings | Most you can pay in with relief (gross) | What it costs you (net) |
| Full time | £35,000 | £35,000 | £28,000 |
| Part time | £15,000 | £15,000 | £12,000 |
| Low earnings | £2,000 | £3,600 | £2,880 |
| Career break, no earnings | £0 | £3,600 | £2,880 |
These are illustrations assuming relief at source, where your provider adds 20% on top, as with SIPPs. Some workplace pensions take your contribution before tax instead. If your earnings are under £3,600, the £3,600 level is only available through a scheme that uses relief at source, according to HMRC’s manual.
Employer contributions don’t need to fit inside your earnings (Royal London’s guide says you’re “not limited to earnings” for what a business pays in), but they do count towards the £60,000.
What this means for a career break. I paid nothing in during my four years out. Under the £3,600 rule, I could have put in £2,880 a year and had it topped up to £3,600, with no salary at all. That’s £11,520 of my own money becoming £14,400 in my pension before any growth. As I showed with the average pension pot by age, lost growth on a gap like that costs more than the missed payments themselves. If you’re on a break now and a partner would like to help, it’s worth knowing that other people can pay in on your behalf, and the payment is treated as yours, with the tax relief going to you.
UK pension contribution limits at a glance
For most people, the maximum pension contribution in the UK for 2026/27 is £60,000 a year, or 100% of your earnings for your own payments, whichever bites first. These figures come from HMRC’s pension schemes rates page, correct at the time of writing.
| Limit | 2026/27 figure | Who it affects |
| Annual allowance | £60,000 | Everyone, across all pensions combined |
| Tax relief on your own contributions | Up to 100% of earnings | Anyone earning under £60,000 |
| Basic amount | £3,600 gross (£2,880 net) | Anyone with no or low earnings |
| Money purchase annual allowance | £10,000 | Anyone who has taken taxable money flexibly from a defined contribution pension |
| Tapered annual allowance minimum | £10,000 | Threshold income over £200,000 and adjusted income over £260,000 |
The 28 October 2026 Budget left the annual allowance, the money purchase annual allowance and the taper thresholds unchanged. Allowances can still change at any Budget, so always verify current figures on gov.uk before relying on mine.
Pension annual allowance carry forward: catching up on missed years
Carry forward lets you use unused allowance from the 3 previous tax years on top of this year’s £60,000. It can be a real catching up rule, with three conditions.
This year’s allowance goes first. HMRC’s manual says the current year is used first, then unused allowance from the earliest of the three years.
You must have been a member of a registered pension scheme in that year. Gov.uk says you can’t carry forward from any year in which you weren’t. Quilter’s technical guide notes that active, deferred or pensioner members all qualify, so an old workplace pot you’ve left untouched can count.
It doesn’t raise your earnings limit. Carry forward makes more annual allowance available, but your own contributions still only get relief on up to 100% of this year’s earnings. Quilter gives the example of someone earning £30,000 who is restricted to £30,000 “regardless of how much annual allowance and carry forward is available.”
There’s a catch if your career break was a while ago: carry forward only reaches back three years. My break ended twelve years ago, so there’s nothing left of it to carry forward, and I’ve never used the rule. It’s most useful if your time out was recent, or if a large amount is going in all at once.
A worked example: Karen goes back to full time work.
Karen is 50. She cared for her mum for three years and earned nothing, though her old workplace pension stayed open as a deferred pot. Nothing was paid in during 2023/24, 2024/25 or 2025/26.
In 2026/27 she returns to full time work on £65,000, and her employer pays 5%, which is £3,250. Her mum left her some money, and she’d like to use it to put as much into her pension as her salary allows, living on her pay as usual.
- Her earnings limit. She can get relief on up to £65,000 gross of her own contributions, which is £52,000 from her, with £13,000 added by her provider.
- The total going in. £65,000 from her plus £3,250 from her employer is £68,250.
- The allowance. This year’s £60,000 is used first, leaving £8,250. That comes from her unused 2023/24 allowance, the earliest year, so she has no tax charge.
Karen is a higher rate taxpayer, so she can claim extra relief through Self Assessment on top of the £13,000. Without carry forward, that £8,250 would have triggered a tax charge. With it, her years spent caring still give her allowance she can use.
On £30,000, carry forward wouldn’t help Karen at all, because her earnings would cap her at £30,000 gross, well within this year’s allowance.
What happens if you go over? The annual allowance charge
If more goes in than your available allowance, you pay the annual allowance charge. The excess is added to your taxable income and taxed at your rate, which cancels out the relief you got on it. You report it in the “Pension savings tax charges” section of a Self Assessment tax return, even if someone else pays the bill.
So if you went £5,000 over as a higher rate taxpayer, the charge would be £2,000, which is 40% of the excess.
Scheme Pays. Your pension scheme can pay the charge from your pot instead, and it then reduces your benefits to match. It only has to do this if your charge is more than £2,000 and your savings in that scheme were over £60,000 for the year. You need to tell the scheme by 31 July of the year after the following tax year, so for a 2026/27 charge, that’s 31 July 2028. For a charge of £2,000 or less, as in the example above, the scheme can choose to pay but doesn’t have to, so you may end up paying it yourself.
If I thought I’d gone over, the first thing I’d look at is carry forward, because the charge may disappear once those three earlier years are counted.
The money purchase annual allowance
Once you take taxable money flexibly from a defined contribution pension, such as your first drawdown income payment, your allowance for those pensions drops to £10,000 a year, for good. Taking only your tax free cash doesn’t trigger it. Your employer’s contributions count towards the £10,000, and carry forward can’t be used against it.
For women going back to work in their late fifties, it’s one of the most expensive rules to trip over. I’ve covered the triggers and how to avoid them in my guide to the money purchase annual allowance, and it’s one of the five costs in how much you could lose by taking your pension at 55.
The tapered annual allowance
Very high earners get a smaller allowance. If your threshold income is over £200,000 and your adjusted income is over £260,000, your allowance falls by £1 for every £2 above £260,000, down to a minimum of £10,000. It’s a separate topic, and if it applies to you, it’s one where paid advice can earn its keep.
Pension annual allowance history
The annual allowance rose to £60,000 on 6 April 2023, after most of a decade at £40,000. That matters for carry forward, because each earlier year is worth whatever the allowance was that year. These figures come from HMRC’s rates page.
| Tax years | Annual allowance |
| 2011/12 to 2013/14 | £50,000 |
| 2014/15 | £40,000 |
| 2015/16 | £80,000 (6 April to 8 July 2015), then £0 to 5 April 2016, a one off transition |
| 2016/17 to 2022/23 | £40,000 |
| 2023/24 to 2026/27 | £60,000 |
For 2026/27, carry forward looks back to 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26, all at £60,000 under current rules.
Where this leaves me. I’m not catching up in one dramatic lump. My catching up is a monthly payment into my SIPP through my fifties, with tax relief added each time. If you’re starting late too, I’ve worked through how much you need to retire in the UK, and if you’re torn between a pension and an ISA for spare money, SIPP vs ISA sets out how I decided. The relief maths in whether pensions are worth it is what convinced me in the first place.
FAQ
Does my employer’s contribution count towards the annual allowance?
Yes. Everything paid into your defined contribution pensions counts, including your employer’s contributions and the tax relief on your own payments. What your employer pays doesn’t have to fit within your earnings, unlike your personal contributions, but it does count towards the £60,000.
Can I pay in more than I earn?
You can, but you’ll only get tax relief on personal contributions up to 100% of your earnings, or £3,600 gross if that’s higher. HMRC can ask for relief on anything above that to be repaid. Carry forward doesn’t change this, because it only raises the allowance, not the earnings limit. Your employer can pay in more than you earn, provided the total stays within your available allowance.
Does the annual allowance apply to a SIPP?
Yes. A SIPP is a pension like any other, so what you pay in, plus the 20% tax relief your provider claims, counts towards the same £60,000 as your workplace pension and any other pots. If you’ve ever taken taxable money flexibly from any defined contribution pension, your SIPP falls under the £10,000 money purchase annual allowance instead.
What if I have no income?
You can still pay in up to £2,880 a year, and your provider adds £720 in basic rate tax relief, making £3,600. This only works through a scheme that uses relief at source, which SIPPs and many personal pensions use. Someone else, such as a partner or parent, can pay it in for you, and it still counts as your contribution and your allowance.
Did the 2026 Budget change the annual allowance?
No. The 28 October 2026 Budget left the annual allowance at £60,000, the money purchase annual allowance at £10,000, and the taper thresholds at £200,000 and £260,000. It did announce changes elsewhere in pensions, including a new allowance for some State Pension recipients from 2027/28. These figures are correct at the time of writing, and future Budgets can change them, so check gov.uk for the current year.
Does the annual allowance reset each April?
Yes. The allowance applies to each tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April, so you get a fresh £60,000 every 6 April under current rules. Anything you don’t use isn’t lost straight away, because it can be carried forward for up to three tax years, provided you were a member of a registered pension scheme in the year it came from.
The £60,000 headline may never touch you, but the rules underneath it can. Knowing what your earnings let you pay in, and that £3,600 is open to you even with no salary, is a far better place to start catching up from.
Angelina is the founder of Investing Adventures, where she helps women build confidence with money and investing. With seven years of personal investing experience, she breaks down complex financial topics into practical, actionable advice. Her mission is simple: to help more women take the driver’s seat in their financial future.
I am not a financial advisor and nothing in this post constitutes financial advice. All investments carry risk and the value of your investments can go down as well as up. Please do your own research and consider seeking independent financial advice before making any investment decisions.