The State Pension is made up of basic State Pension and additional State Pension. If you have built up enough 'Qualifying years', you will receive the full basic State Pension when you retire.

'Qualifying years' are the years in which you have been paying or treated as paying National Insurance contributions. In certain circumstances, you can be credited with National Insurance contributions if you have been unable to do paid work.

How many qualifying years do I need?

Men need 44 'Qualifying years' to get a full basic State Pension and women who reach 60 before 2010 need 39 'Qualifying years'. But the State Pension age for women will change between 2010 and 2020 so the number of qualifying years a woman needs will gradually increase to 44 years.

If you do not have the full number of 'Qualifying years', you will still get a percentage of the full basic State Pension.

To get the minimum basic State Pension (25%) you normally need 10 or 11 qualifying years. If you are more than four months away from State Pension age, you can find out how much you will get by requesting a State Pension Forecast.

You can write to State Pension Forecasting Team at Room BP001, Tyneview Park, Whitley Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE98 1BA for a forecast form (BR19)

Click Here to go the State Pension Calculator which indicates how valuable the State Pension will be to you in your retirement.