Millions of workers are being given more time to boost their state pension by thousands of pounds.

People aged roughly 45 to 70 are being told to investigate the national insurance contributions they’ve made until now, in the event that they want to boost those contributions and increase the amount of money they’ll get in retirement. Here’s how it works:

The new state pension

A new state pension was introduced seven years ago, on April 6, 2016, and to get it you need to have around 35 years of paying national insurance to qualify.

But as a result of career breaks, or caring for others, short periods spent unemployed or time spent abroad, potentially hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to be missing out on some of those vital years which they require to qualify for their full state pension in later life.

Those who discover they have a shortfall could be permitted to buy more years back if they need them - but there is only a limited amount of time available to make a claim for the largest possible amount.

However the government has now announced plans to further push back that deadline – giving millions of people more time to ensure they have got the maximum number of contributions under their belt.

Getting a full state pension

According to latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions, approximately 3.8million people miss out on the full state pension.

While buying back years can cost anything between £15 and several thousand depending on how much is missing - the move can add many more thousands of pounds to a person's eventual state pension.

How to check if you're missing national insurance years?

People under state pension age can check if they've got missing years using the Gov.uk pension summary, which can tell whether your pension is forecast to be at the full state level, followed by a check of your personal national insurance record to find out whether you've got missing years and where they are.

While in some cases earning back the years might be free - if for example you were caring for someone - on many occasions it requires people to make a financial contribution and claimants must then decide whether it's worthwhile or if, depending on their age and whether they think they've time to acquire and earn back what is missing naturally.

Buying back

National insurance contributions can be bought back for £15.85 a week - which means it costs £824.20 to buy one entire year's worth of contributions. But this can add £275 to a state pension every year.

The government's Future Pension Centre can also offer help and offer advice when it comes to pension predictions for those struggling to decide whether the boost is needed and to what extent - and the advice is to contact them before purchasing any missing credits you think you might need.

Financal expert Martin Lewis said: "If you have a shortfall, you can buy more years. So if you can't get them free, you can buy them. If you're near state pension age, this is easy. You'll know whether or not you'll be able to make them up another way.

"If you're younger, you've got more time to plug the gaps naturally by working, or any other method, which makes it more difficult to see if it's worthwhile."

If you're under 45

While the pension boost and offer to buy back as far back as 2006, is likely to be most beneficial for those over the age of 45 to consider, the Money Saving Expert is encouraging all workers to spend time checking their national insurance contributions because the scheme could be ‘life-changing’.

Martin Lewis added: "It's important to understand national insurance years are binary. You either qualify for them or you don't. You don't get half a year. You either get nothing or you get the whole year.

"And it can be the case, if you're only a week short of a full year, you may be told, and you heard that's why they had the partial year that was cheaper, one week's worth, £15, may qualify you for a full year.

"So I think it's worth saying, and it's difficult this, if you were under 45 and you saw that you were really nearly getting the full year, even though it might be wasting money to buy it because you might earn the full number of national insurance years naturally anyway, you might want to consider doing it speculatively if it's really cheap for 2006 to 2017.”

Deadline changes

The deadline to buy back those national insurance contributions has now been extended and the price of doing so has also been frozen.

Since news of the initial 2023 deadlines were released, government websites and phone lines have been overwhelmed with people trying to obtain details of their personal contributions to date, while social media has been flooded with people saying they’ve rung tens of times only to be cut off.

Now, pension savers now have until April 5, 2025 to check their records and pay any voluntary contributions.

Laura Trott, minister for pensions, said: "I am pleased to see so many people taking steps to review their state pension, which is why we have extended the deadline for customers to add extra years to their national insurance record."