Two numbers have been moving towards each other for years, and in April 2026 they end up £22 apart.
One is the full new State Pension, as DWP has just uprated it. The other is the amount of income you can have before Income Tax starts. They are now close enough that the arithmetic is worth doing rather than assuming.
The two numbers
DWP confirmed the April 2026 uprating: the full rate of the new State Pension will increase by 4.8% in line with the increase in average earnings, from £230.25 to £241.30 a week. The full basic State Pension goes from £176.45 to £184.90.
Multiply the new rate by 52 and you get £12,547.60 a year.
The Personal Allowance is £12,570, and it is not moving. HMRC's measure maintains the Personal Allowance and the basic rate limit at their current levels until 5 April 2031 — the allowance at £12,570, the basic rate limit at £37,700.
£12,570 − £12,547.60 = £22.40.
That is the whole of the tax-free headroom a person on the full new State Pension has left, before any other income at all.
What is actually changing, and what is not
It is worth being precise here, because this gets reported badly in both directions.
The State Pension has always been taxable income. It is not being newly taxed and no policy has changed its status. GOV.UK's position is the ordinary one: you pay tax if your total annual income adds up to more than your Personal Allowance.
What has changed is that one of the numbers is frozen and the other is not. The triple lock raises the State Pension every April by the highest of earnings growth, price inflation or 2.5%. The Personal Allowance does not rise at all until 2031 at the earliest. Two lines, one climbing and one flat, and £22.40 between them.
Do the next step yourself. A rise of more than about 0.2% next April puts the full new State Pension above the Personal Allowance (opens in a new tab) on its own. The triple lock has a floor of 2.5%.
The part that catches people first
Almost nobody has only the State Pension. Most people have something else — a workplace pension, an annuity, a bit of interest, some rent, a few hours of work.
Under the old arithmetic there was room underneath the allowance to absorb a small second income tax-free. On DWP's and HMRC's own figures that room is now £22.40. A private pension paying £2,000 a year used to be partly sheltered; on these numbers it is taxable almost from the first pound.
This is the practical consequence, and it arrives well before the headline moment when the State Pension crosses the line by itself.
HMRC put a number on the general effect when the freeze was extended: maintaining the thresholds is expected to bring 700,000 individuals into Income Tax by 2030 to 2031, compared with indexing them to CPI from 2028-29.
The basic State Pension is in a different position
A distinction a lot of coverage flattens, and it decides whether any of this applies to you.
- The new State Pension is for people reaching State Pension age on or after 6 April 2016. Full rate £241.30 a week, per DWP's rates for 2026 to 2027 (opens in a new tab).
- The basic State Pension is the older scheme. Full rate £184.90 a week — roughly £9,615 a year.
Someone on the full basic State Pension has nearly £3,000 of allowance still unused. They may well have additional State Pension on top, which changes the total, but the starting position is not the same one at all.
If you do not know which scheme you are on, that is the first thing to establish, and it follows from the date you reached State Pension age.
And most people are not on the full rate anyway
£241.30 is the full rate, not the typical one. GOV.UK is clear that your State Pension amount depends on your National Insurance record, and that 35 qualifying years are needed for the full new State Pension where the record starts after April 2016 — usually more than 35 where it started before.
An incomplete record means a smaller pension and more unused allowance. Which is not a consolation, exactly, but it does mean the £22.40 figure is the position of someone with a full record rather than a description of everybody.
Your own figure is on your State Pension forecast (opens in a new tab), and it is the number this exercise needs.
How the tax would actually be collected
There is no tax deducted from the State Pension before it reaches you. It arrives whole. So where tax is owed, it has to be collected somewhere else.
If you have other PAYE income — a workplace pension in payment, an annuity, employment — the tax is normally collected by adjusting the tax code on that income. This is why a tax code can look wrong to someone who has never had an unusual one before: it is carrying the tax on a second income that has none deducted.
If you have no other PAYE income, HMRC issues a Simple Assessment: a calculation and a bill rather than a tax return. The deadline is attached to the letter — if it arrives before 31 October, payment is due by the following 31 January; if on or after, within three months of the date on the letter.
Neither is a penalty and neither means anything has gone wrong. But a bill arriving by post to a household that has never filed anything is a genuine shock, and it is worth knowing the mechanism exists before it turns up.
What this means for planning
Three things follow, and none of them is dramatic.
Check your forecast (opens in a new tab) rather than the headline. The number that matters is yours, not £241.30.
Count everything else. Savings interest, dividends, rental income and drawdown all sit on top of the State Pension in the same calculation. The Personal Savings Allowance and dividend allowance exist alongside the Personal Allowance, not inside it, which is a separate calculation worth doing properly.
Expect the pattern to continue. With the allowance held to 2031 and the triple lock intact, the direction is fixed. For anyone drawing a private pension flexibly, the timing of withdrawals is the live decision — and for anyone thinking further ahead, the change that brings unspent pensions into the inheritance tax net from 6 April 2027 interacts with exactly those decisions.
If illness rather than retirement is the risk you are sizing, what the state actually pays if you cannot work runs on entirely different and much smaller numbers.
What to actually check
- Which State Pension are you on — new or basic? It follows from the date you reached State Pension age.
- Your State Pension forecast, for your actual figure rather than the full rate.
- Every other source of taxable income, added to it.
- Your tax code, if you have a workplace pension or a job. It may be doing work you had not noticed.
- Whether a Simple Assessment could reach you, if nothing you receive has tax deducted.
This article sets out published rates and thresholds and is general information for a United Kingdom audience. It is not tax or financial advice, and what any individual pays depends on their full circumstances, their National Insurance record and income this article does not cover. Check your own figures on GOV.UK and take advice from a qualified adviser or from an organisation such as Citizens Advice before acting.
Sources
- GOV.UK — Benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027 (opens in a new tab)
- GOV.UK — Over 12 million pensioners to receive £575 State Pension boost (opens in a new tab)
- GOV.UK — The new State Pension: what you'll get (opens in a new tab)
- GOV.UK — Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances (opens in a new tab)
- GOV.UK — Maintaining Income Tax and equivalent NICs thresholds until 5 April 2031 (opens in a new tab)
- GOV.UK — Tax when you get a pension (opens in a new tab)
- GOV.UK — Pay your Simple Assessment tax bill (opens in a new tab)
This article is general information for a United Kingdom audience and reflects rates and thresholds published by DWP and HMRC at the date of review. It is not tax, financial or welfare advice. Benefit rates are reviewed annually, tax thresholds can change, and what any individual receives or owes depends on their National Insurance record and their total income. Check current figures on GOV.UK and take advice before relying on any of this. Last reviewed 16 September 2026.
