Guidance

Protect your pension lifetime allowance

How to apply for and check protections from the reductions in lifetime allowance.

The current standard lifetime allowance is £1,073,100. Read the previous rates of standard lifetime allowance.

You may be able to protect your pension savings from the 6 April 2016 reduction of the standard lifetime allowance, when it was reduced to £1 million. There are 2 protections you can apply for.

Protection What it does Can I keep building up my pensions?
Individual protection 2016 Protects your lifetime allowance to the lower of:

• the value of your pension savings at 5 April 2016
• £1.25 million
Yes. But you must pay a tax charge on money taken from your pension savings that exceed your protected lifetime allowance if you take your pension before 6 April 2023.
Fixed protection 2016 Fixes your lifetime allowance at £1.25 million. If HMRC received your application on or after 15 March 2023, you cannot keep building up your pensions from 6 April 2016, except in limited circumstances.

If HMRC received your successful application before 15 March 2023 and you still validly hold this protection, you can continue to build up your pensions without impacting the validity of your Fixed Protection 2016 from 6 April 2023. The rules on how you can lose your protection still apply from 6 April 2016 to 5 April 2023.

Check your existing protection

To check your existing protection, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you check.

Apply for protection after the public service pensions remedy (also known as McCloud)

If you were a member of a public service pension scheme between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022, following the public service pensions remedy you may be eligible to apply for either:

  • fixed protection 2016
  • individual protection 2016

If you think you’re eligible, write to HMRC to apply at:

Pension Schemes Services
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1GH

You must include:

  • the type of protection you’re applying for
  • that you’re applying as a result of the public service pensions remedy
  • your National Insurance number
  • your contact details

Once we have received your letter, we will write to you to let you know the next steps, or to ask for any additional information we need to process your application.

Apply for individual protection 2016

You can apply if your pension savings were worth more than £1 million at 5 April 2016.

You can still apply if you already have:

  • enhanced protection
  • fixed protection
  • fixed protection 2014
  • fixed protection 2016

Individual protection 2016 will stay dormant until you lose or give up your previous protection. Tell HMRC in writing if this happens.

If you applied for protection from the 2016 reduction and received a temporary reference number, you must apply online for a permanent reference number.

You cannot apply if you’ve either:

  • primary protection
  • individual protection 2014

Before you start

To apply for individual protection, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you apply.

You’ll also need to know:

If you do not know this information, you can ask your pension scheme administrator. If you have more than one scheme, add the amounts from each scheme together.

Check if there are any current service problems, or times when it will not be available.

Apply for fixed protection 2016

You can apply if:

  • you or your employer have not added to your pension savings since 5 April 2016
  • you opted out of any workplace schemes by 5 April 2016

You can still apply for fixed protection 2016 if you already have individual protection 2014. Fixed protection 2016 will be dormant until you lose your previous protection. You should tell HMRC in writing when you have lost lifetime allowance protection.

You cannot apply if you have:

  • enhanced protection
  • primary protection
  • fixed protection
  • fixed protection 2014

If you applied for protection from the 2016 reduction and received a temporary reference number, you must apply online for a permanent reference number.

Before you start

To apply for fixed protection, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you apply.

Check if there are any current service problems, or times when it will not be available.

After you’ve applied

Taking money from your pension scheme

Once you’ve applied for lifetime allowance protection through the online service you’ll receive 2 reference numbers that you’ll need to keep. These are your:

  • protection notification number
  • scheme administrator reference

You’ll need to give these reference numbers to your scheme administrator when you decide to take money from your pension schemes, to show that you have a lifetime allowance protection.

Your protection notification number will be shown as:

  • FP16 followed by 10 digits and 1 letter for fixed protection 2016, for example FP161234567890A
  • IP16 followed by 10 digits and 1 letter for individual protection 2016, for example IP161234567890B

Your scheme administrator reference will be shown as PSA followed by 8 digits and 1 letter.

You can find these reference numbers online, even if you did not apply for lifetime allowance protection online.

Report a change to your pension

Changes in your pension can affect if you can keep your individual protection for 2014 and 2016. You should tell HMRC if:

  • the amount of your pension breakdown changes
  • you need to add or change a pension debit because you receive a discharge notice as a result of a pension sharing order — you must tell us within 60 days of the pension debit

If you’ve protected your pension savings online you’ll be able to amend your protections yourself. For example, if you made mistakes with the values when you applied, or if you have pension debits which affect the amount you’re protected by.

To amend your protections, select the ‘pensions’ option. You’ll need the Government Gateway user ID and password you used when you applied.

If you did not protect your pension savings online, you should tell HMRC in writing about these changes. HMRC will write to you to let you know how it affects your protection.

If you’ve lost protection

There are certain conditions that you’ll need to meet in order to rely on your protection if you hold:

  • enhanced protection
  • fixed protection
  • fixed protection 2014
  • fixed protection 2016

If you do not meet these conditions, you may lose your protection and will need to tell HMRC in writing.

Published 6 April 2016
Last updated 22 August 2023 + show all updates
  1. Information about applying for fixed protection 2016 or individual protection 2016 after the public service pensions remedy has been added.

  2. Information about pensions lifetime allowance protection and what to do if you lose your protection has been updated.

  3. The section 'If you’ve lost protection' has been added.

  4. A link has been added to sections 'Apply for individual protection 2016' and 'After you’ve applied' to give guidance on what to do if you lose your lifetime allowance protection. The section 'If you've lost protection' has been removed.

  5. The lifetime allowance stays at £1,073,100 for 2021 to 2022.

  6. The lifetime allowance has increased from £1,055,000 to £1,073,100 from 6 April 2020.

  7. The current standard lifetime allowance has been change from £1,030,000 to £1,055,000.

  8. Rates, allowances and duties have been updated for the tax year 2018 to 2019.

  9. This guidance has been updated with information about lifetime allowance protection reference numbers.

  10. References to the individual protection 2014 (IP2014) have been removed as the deadline for applying for this protection closed on 5 April 2017.

  11. The section on how and when to report a change has been amended.

  12. This guidance has been updated to reflect the new online service for members to protect their lifetime allowance from the 2014 and 2016 reduction.

  13. First published.