UPDATE: |Thousands hit by HMRC error were ‘blocked’ from boosting State Pension before key deadline News

HMRC has confirmed that thousands were locked out of their National Insurance contribution system due to an error

The deadline to top-up your State Pension by filling in gaps in your National Insurance record passed on Saturday, April 5, but thousands of working-age Brits found themselves wrongly locked out of the system.

Brits were given until Saturday at 11.59pm to rectify gaps in their NI records from 2006 to 2018 with HMRC in order to receive higher State Pension payments in retirement. This was thanks to transitional arrangements brought in as part of pension reforms in 2016.

People need a record of at least 35 years of full National Insurance payments to receive the full State Pension, which was raised to £230 a week this month. However, thousands of Brits were unable to do so by this deadline.

HMRC representatives confirmed to MoneySavingExpert that this was due to an error on their end. Martin Lewis and his MSE team had repeatedly called for anyone aged 43 to 73 to take advantage of this temporary arrangement as it could boost your ultimate State Pension payout by tens of thousands.

In response to the error, HMRC has stated that anyone who had begun to fill in their NI contributions record by the deadline, April 5, would still be able to do so. Around 21,000 people are thought to have been affected by this on the day.

Anyone who had waited until the final day logged in to find a message telling them that the NI deadline had passed. HMRC has stated that the system had been taken offline a day earlier than planned.

Because of this, if you began using the online NI service or had submitted a DWP call-back form by the deadline, you should be contacted by HMRC. MSE was told by the tax authority that affected individuals did not need to get in touch, but noted: “If you don’t hear anything, you can try to contact HMRC yourself.”

A HMRC spokesperson said: “We’re sorry that customers were unable to use our online service on Saturday to top up National Insurance contributions for years prior to 2021. We will contact anyone affected directly about the payments they wanted to make to ensure they don’t miss out.”

While the transitional arrangement has ended and any gaps between 2006 and 2018 will not be able to be filled, you can still fill any gaps in the past six years where you were not working or claiming benefits. You can do so by paying a Voluntary National Insurance contribution, with the deadline being April 5 every year.