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What tax do you pay on your pension?

When you are taking cash out of your pension pot, 25% is tax free. You pay Income Tax on the additional 75%.

Your tax free amount does not consume any of your individual Allowance – the quantity of income you do not need to spend tax on. The conventional Personal Allowance is £12,570.

The quantity of tax you pay is determined by the overall earnings of yours of the season and the tax rate of yours.
How each pension option is taxed. Use our Tax Calculator to work out your contributions.

This table provides an overview of just how much tax you might spend on the cash you take out of your pension pot.
Other tax you might pay

You might like to pay Income Tax on:

your State Pension
earnings from employment or even self employment any additional income, e.g. money from rental cash flow, savings, investments
any taxable benefits you may get, e.g. Carer’s Allowance

The twenty five % tax free amount

You will find 2 ways you are able to take your tax free amount.
Take it all in a single go

You are able to take twenty five % as being a lump sum without having to pay tax. When you do this, you cannot leave the remaining seventy five % untouched. You should either:

buy a guaranteed cash flow (annuity)
get an adjustable income (flexi access drawdown)
consider the entire pot as cash

Example Your container is £60,000 plus you are taking £15,000 – this is the tax free lump sum of yours. You purchase an annuity with the remaining £45,000 that pays you £2,000 a year. This money is taxable.
Bring it in chunks

You are able to take small cash sums within your pension pot without compensating tax. twenty five % of every chunk is tax free.

Example Your container is £60,000 plus you are taking £1,000 each month – £250 of this is tax free. The remaining £750 is taxable.
Exactly how your tax is paid

Money you take out of your pot comes from the provider of yours with the tax probably taken off.

The provider of yours also will take off of any tax due on the State Pension of yours.

You might spend emergency tax when you are taking cash from the pot of yours. You are able to get it also from HM Revenue & Customs.
In case you go on working

The employer of yours is going to take some tax you owe off the earnings of yours and the State Pension of yours. This is named Pay As You Earn (PAYE).

in case your overall income (including cash from pensions along with PAYE) is £100,000 plus for any tax season, or even if you are self employed, you will need to pack in a Self Assessment tax return.
If you’ve additional income

You are in charge of having to pay tax on various other income you’ve, e.g. from investments or property, and you might need to fill in a Self Assessment tax return.

You typically spend tax in case your pension pots are worth much more than the lifetime allowance. This is now £1,073,100.