Guidance

Tell HMRC about a change to your  pension income

How to update your details online if you think your tax code is wrong because of changes to your pension income.

Give us feedback.

We need your help to improve and to make sure GOV.UK works well for you. You can give us feedback about this guidance to help make GOV.UK better.

Pension income is included in your Income Tax calculation each year. This is why your tax code can change if your pension income changes.

You should consider updating your estimated annual income if there has been a change to your pension income and you think it will affect your current Income Tax band. This can happen if you:

  • start a new pension 
  • are employed and receive a pension increase 
  • are employed and take irregular payments from your pension

Check your details

You can use the PAYE section of HMRC online services or the HMRC app to check your:

  • pension providers details
  • estimated income for the year includes your pension income

Using the HMRC online service:

  1. Sign in to HMRC online services.
  2. Go to the ‘Pay As You Earn (PAYE)’ section.
  3. Select ‘check current tax year’ to view your PAYE Income Tax Summary for 6 April to 5 April.

Using the HMRC app

  1. Download the HMRC app.
  2. Go to the ‘Pay As You Earn (PAYE)’ section.

Update your details if they are wrong or missing

If your details are wrong or missing you can use the HMRC online services or the HMRC app to:

  • update your estimated income — if the amount is incorrect 
  • add a missing pension provider — you can only make this change 6 weeks after your first payment from the missing provider

You can find more information on tax when you get a pension.

You can also tell HMRC about:

Keeping your tax code up to date helps make sure you pay the correct amount of tax. This makes it less likely you will pay too much or too little tax.

After you update your details

Not all changes you tell HMRC about will affect your tax code. We will tell your employer or pension provider if your tax code changes. Your next payslip should show your new tax code and any adjustments if you were paying the wrong amount of tax. 

When you sign up for paperless updates you will get a message if your tax code changes. You can view these updates in the:

Go paperless for tax code updates

You can choose to receive updates about any changes to your tax code by email or as an online message in your HMRC online account or HMRC app. Find out how to go paperless for tax code updates.

If you need extra help using HMRC online services  

You can find out how to:

Updates to this page

Published 16 January 2025

Sign up for emails or print this page