Martin Lewis has some handy advice for people over the state pension. But he has a word of caution on the ‘6 year’ rule.

His guidance is useful for those considering making voluntary National Insurance contributions to boost their state pension. If there are gaps in your NI record, you can choose to make voluntary payments, which could potentially enhance your state pension entitlement.

However, Mr Lewis has a word of warning following changes to the rules last year. The issue was brought to light when a listener of his BBC podcast reached out to Mr Lewis to reveal that he had managed to significantly increase his pension.

This came after Martin Lewis advised him to explore whether he could buy additional contributions. This listener had previously only accumulated nine years of NI contributions, whereas a minimum of 10 years is needed to qualify for any state pension when claiming the benefit.

Typically, 35 years of contributions are required to be eligible for the full new state pension, currently set at £230.25 per week. Payments are set to rise by 4.8 per cent next April under the triple lock, pushing the full new rate to £241.30 weekly, or £12,547.60 annually.

The listener informed Martin that they had been able to purchase 18 years’ worth of contributions under a previous extended scheme which ended in April 2025. Usually, you can only buy contributions dating back six years, but this was temporarily extended, allowing voluntary contributions as far back as the 2006/2007 tax year, reports the Mirror.

Mr Lewis, speaking on a podcast just before Christmas, offered advice that remains relevant today. He said: “You bought 18 years, it probably cost you depending on if you were self employed or not, somewhere in the region of £10,000 to £15,000, so quite a lot of money.

“But on the back of that, you would get I would estimate around £120 a week state pension, which is about £6,000 a year. Let’s say you live 20 years from your pension age, which would be a typical life expectancy – that’s £120,000 and that is inflation proofed because of the triple lock.”

With 18 years of NI contributions, you could anticipate roughly £124 per week in state pension, nearly £6,500 annually. Mr Lewis also issued a warning for those contemplating topping up.

He said: “The whole issue about April 2025 is that was the deadline for going back to 2006. The rules now are that you can only go back six years.

“It was about the transition from the old state pension to the new state pension. If you are missing years in the last six years, it is worth checking and doing the maths.

“There are some guides online that will help you deciding whether it is worth you buying those extra years to make sure that you’re getting the full state pension. If you are missing years, it can be very lucrative but it isn’t right for everyone and it’s a bit of a process.”

Government guidance on buying contributions

The gov.uk website states: “You can only pay voluntary contributions for the past 6 years. The deadline is 5 April each year.

“For example, you have until 5 April 2031 to makeup gaps for the tax year 2024 to 2025.” Further details can be found on the site.