How much is State Pension for married couples? | Personal Finance | Finance
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State Pension is one of the most important Government payments there is and helps support millions of retired Britons through later life. As many are settled and married or in a civil partnership by the time they reach retirement age, some wonder if there are special payments for married couples.
State Pension is available for you to claim when you reach retirement age, which is currently 66 for men and women.
The age threshold is scheduled to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028 and is then expected to increase further to 68 from 2037.
You only qualify for a full State Pension once you have 35 years’ worth of National Insurance contributions.
To get any State Pension at all, you need to have made at least ten years of National Insurance contributions.
Is there a State Pension for married couples? How much is it?
There are no such payments that are made specifically to married couples.
Both partners are responsible for their own NI contributions, and will get their own individual payments – no lump sum is paid to married couples either.
Previously, many women had gaps in their National Insurance record or had paid the specially reduced ‘Married Woman’s Stamp’, otherwise known as ‘Small Stamp’, meaning they would reach pension age with a limited pension entitlement.
A married woman used to have the option to claim a pension at 60 percent of the full basic State Pension rate based on her husband’s record of NI contributions.
This could be claimed when her husband reached State Pension age.
However, this has now been scrapped, with both partners in a couple being responsible for their own pension contributions, and each getting an individual sum whenever their respective pensions are paid out.
This system is now fairer for widows and divorced women, as well as those in same-sex couples, as most household incomes are no longer based on the man’s salary alone.
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