The State Pension is the one benefit people assume arrives by itself, and GOV.UK’s first sentence on claiming it is that it does not. A letter arrives, the online form wants a code from it, and where the letter has not come or the form will not accept the answers, the claim stalls. This page is the three routes to claim, the two reasons a claim fails, and the numbers to ring.
You have to claim it
GOV.UK says you will not get your new State Pension automatically and have to claim it, and lists what you need: the date of your most recent marriage, civil partnership or divorce, the dates of any time living or working abroad, and your bank or building society details (GOV.UK, The new State Pension: how to claim, checked 1 November 2026).
It adds any social security numbers for foreign state pension schemes, and, for an online claim, the invitation code from the letter about getting your State Pension.
Nothing is paid for the months before a claim beyond what the rules allow, and our deferring page covers what a late claim earns and the one-year limit on arrears. Claiming on time is the answer to most of what follows.
The invitation letter, and the code
The letter is the key to the online route. GOV.UK says that if you have not received an invitation letter but you are within three months of reaching your State Pension age, you can request an invitation code (GOV.UK, The new State Pension: how to claim, checked 1 November 2026). A letter to a former address, or one mistaken for junk mail, is replaced that way.
The online service will not take a claim without the code, and it is not the only door. GOV.UK gives two others.
Claiming by phone or post
GOV.UK says that if you will reach State Pension age in the next four months you can phone the Pension Service to claim (GOV.UK, The new State Pension: how to claim, checked 1 November 2026). The number is 0800 731 7898, with Welsh on 0800 731 7936 and Relay UK on 18001 first, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm except public holidays (GOV.UK, Contact the Pension Service: get information about your State Pension, checked 1 November 2026).
A postal claim goes to Freepost DWP Pensions Service 3, with no postcode or stamp needed. Where the online form errors, rejects a date, or cannot verify identity, the phone claim takes the same information and the DWP’s own staff enter it. That is the route this page recommends for anyone the website has defeated twice.
The one reason a claim is refused
GOV.UK says you need 10 qualifying years on your National Insurance record to get any new State Pension (GOV.UK, The new State Pension: eligibility, checked 1 November 2026). A record with nine is refused outright, and a record with ten pays a proportion of the full rate.
For anyone with years before April 2016 the number needed for the full £241.30 is personal, fewer or more than 35, and our forecast page explains why.
Years spent abroad, years contracted out through a workplace scheme, and years in which a credit was due but never recorded are the three ways a record ends up shorter than the person remembers. Our forecast page covers the arithmetic and the National Insurance credits page the free years worth checking before the claim is treated as final.
A record that is wrong
HMRC keeps the record and the DWP decides the pension on it. GOV.UK’s record service shows what you have paid up to the start of the current tax year, any credits you have received, and whether gaps mean some years do not count (GOV.UK, Check your National Insurance record, checked 1 November 2026).
A year that should carry a credit, for Child Benefit, a benefit claim or caring, is raised with HMRC’s National Insurance helpline with the evidence, and GOV.UK’s mandatory reconsideration page names National Insurance credits among the decisions that can be challenged (GOV.UK, Challenge a benefit decision (mandatory reconsideration): eligibility, checked 1 November 2026).
Missing Home Responsibilities Protection for the years before 2010 is the case HMRC is still correcting, and GOV.UK says you can still apply if you think it is missing from your record (GOV.UK, Home Responsibilities Protection, checked 1 November 2026). A corrected record changes the pension decision, and arrears follow.
Challenging the decision
A State Pension decision can be looked at again, and the decision letter says how. GOV.UK’s general page says a request is usually made within one month of the decision, and later with a good reason (GOV.UK, Challenge a benefit decision (mandatory reconsideration): eligibility, checked 1 November 2026). The letter sets out the route.
GOV.UK’s list of benefits covered names Pension Credit and National Insurance credits and does not name the State Pension. The power itself is in the Social Security Act, which says a decision on a claim may be revised by the Secretary of State, on an application or on his own initiative (Social Security Act 1998, section 9, checked 1 November 2026).
Ask in writing to the address on the letter, say which figure or date you dispute and why, and keep a copy. Where the dispute is about the record, HMRC is the right door; where it is about the DWP’s calculation from the record, the Pension Service is.
The numbers
Two numbers do different jobs. GOV.UK gives 0800 731 7898 for a new claim, and the Pension Service on 0800 731 0469, Welsh 0800 731 0453, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, for information about your pension, with the postal address The Pension Service, Post Handling Site A, Wolverhampton, WV98 1AF (GOV.UK, Contact the Pension Service: get information about your State Pension, checked 1 November 2026).
Our contact page sets out which number is for what. Where the claim has been made and the money has not arrived, the payment dates page covers when the first payment falls, and the State Pension hub what the pension pays.