Guidance

Claim tax relief on your private pension payments

Use this service to claim tax relief on your personal pension and workplace pension scheme.

If you complete a Self Assessment tax return, you must claim through your tax return (for the current tax year and any previous years). Use this service if you are claiming a tax relief through your tax code for just the current tax year.

You will need to call or write to us to claim tax relief if you are paying the basic rate of tax and:

  • your pension scheme is not set up for automatic tax relief
  • you pay a lump sum into a personal pension that is not under a net pay scheme

Who can claim

To be eligible to claim tax relief you must be paying into a personal or workplace pension scheme and be paying more than the basic rate of tax.

What you’ll need

To claim tax relief on your personal and workplace pension payments, you’ll need:

  • your National Insurance number
  • the type of pension
  • the name of the pension provider
  • the net amount of pension contributions for each tax year you’re claiming for
  • proof from your pension provider of payments made for each tax year you’re claiming for
  • your payroll number or reference number

How to claim

Claim online

You’ll need to sign in with your Government Gateway user ID and password (if you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you first try to sign in).

You can save your progress and come back to it later.

Claim now

Claim by post 

You must send us a letter if you’re:

  • unable to claim online
  • an agent acting on behalf of a client

You’ll need to include all the information from the ‘what you’ll need’ section in your letter and send it to:

Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1AS
United Kingdom

After you’ve claimed

We will review your claim and contact you within 28 working days.

Updates to this page

Published 3 February 2025

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