Pension carry forward calculator

Work out how much you can pay into a pension this tax year once unused annual allowance from the previous three years is added in, and whether an annual allowance charge applies.

Figures for the 2026/27 tax year. Last reviewed 28-09-2026.

How carry forward actually works

The pension annual allowance is £60,000 a year for most people. Carry forward lets you use up allowance you didn't need in any of the previous three tax years, on top of this year's own £60,000 — useful after a bonus, a business sale, or any year where you can suddenly afford to pay in more than usual.

The order HMRC applies it in matters. Each of the previous three years' allowance is worked out on its own terms first — including tapering it down if that year's income was high enough — and only then is the leftover amount (that year's allowance minus what was actually paid in) available to bring forward. You can't carry forward more than a year's unused amount, and you can't carry forward from a year in which you weren't a member of a registered pension scheme at all, even though the standard allowance still technically 'existed' for that year.

Carry forward doesn't create new allowance out of nothing — it just lets unused headroom from the last three years count towards this year's contribution, so nothing is wasted just because it fell in a year you couldn't use it.

A worked example

Say someone pays £20,000 into their pension in each of the last three tax years, with no tapering in any of them, so each year's full £60,000 allowance applies. Unused allowance each year is 60,000 - 20,000 = £40,000, giving £120,000 of carry forward available in total.

This year they want to pay in £70,000, following a bonus. Their own allowance for this year is £60,000, plus £120,000 carried forward, for £180,000 available in total. £70,000 is comfortably inside that, so no annual allowance charge applies — the whole contribution qualifies for tax relief in the normal way.

Without carry forward, only £60,000 of that £70,000 contribution would have fitted inside the allowance, and the remaining £10,000 would have triggered a charge that claws back the tax relief on the excess.

When tapering and carry forward interact

High earners face a second complication: the tapered annual allowance. If threshold income is above £200,000 and adjusted income is above £260,000 in a given year, that year's allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income over £260,000, down to a minimum of £10,000.

Tapering is applied per year, using that year's own threshold and adjusted income, before carry forward is worked out from it. A year where someone's allowance was tapered down to, say, £40,000 only offers up unused carry forward based on that £40,000 figure, not the standard £60,000 — and if their contribution that year already used up all £40,000 (or more), there's nothing left over from that year to carry forward at all.

This is worth checking carefully if income has varied a lot over the last few years — a high-income year with a big pension contribution might look generous on the surface but actually leave little or nothing to carry forward, once its own allowance has been tapered down.

Why this matters and who it typically helps

Carry forward comes up most often around a bonus, a one-off dividend, redundancy pay, or selling a business — situations that put a lump of cash in someone's hands in a single tax year, well above what they'd normally be able to contribute. Rather than losing the chance to get tax relief on the excess, carry forward can let the whole amount go in at once, spread conceptually across the current and previous three years' allowance instead of just this year's.

It's also relevant to anyone who paid little or nothing into a pension in recent years — perhaps while self-employed with variable income, or focused on other priorities — and now wants to catch up. As long as they were a member of a registered pension scheme in those years (even with no or low contributions), the unused allowance is still available to carry forward.

Common mistakes people make

The most common one is assuming carry forward applies automatically without checking scheme membership in each of the previous three years. If someone joined their first pension scheme only two years ago, there's simply no allowance to carry forward from the year before that, regardless of what their income was that year.

The second is forgetting that tapering happens first. Someone with high income in a prior year sometimes assumes a full £60,000 was available to carry forward from it, when in fact tapering had already reduced that year's own allowance well below £60,000.

The third is contributing more than the total available and only finding out about the annual allowance charge later, via a self-assessment tax return. The charge effectively claws back the tax relief on the excess at the contributor's marginal rate — it isn't a separate penalty on top, but it can still be an unwelcome surprise if the total across all four years wasn't checked beforehand.

Frequently asked questions

How many years can I carry forward pension allowance from?

Up to three previous tax years, on top of your own allowance for the current year. You use the earliest of those three years' unused allowance first, though the total figure this calculator gives you is the same regardless of the order it's drawn down in.

Can I carry forward from a year I wasn't paying into a pension?

Yes, as long as you were a member of a registered pension scheme that year, even with no contributions — the full (or tapered) allowance for that year is unused and available. What you can't do is carry forward from a year in which you had no pension scheme membership at all.

Does carry forward still work if my annual allowance was tapered?

Yes, but the amount you can carry forward from a tapered year is based on that year's reduced allowance, not the standard £60,000. Each year's tapering is worked out first, using that year's own threshold and adjusted income, before the unused amount is calculated.

What happens if I contribute more than my total available allowance?

The excess is subject to the annual allowance charge, which effectively removes the tax relief you'd otherwise have received on that portion, charged at your marginal rate through self-assessment. It isn't an additional penalty beyond that, but it does mean the contribution didn't achieve the tax-relief benefit you might have expected.

Does the Money Purchase Annual Allowance affect carry forward?

If you've already flexibly accessed a defined contribution pension, your annual allowance for money purchase contributions is capped at the Money Purchase Annual Allowance instead of the standard figure, and carry forward cannot be used to increase that specific cap. This calculator assumes the standard annual allowance applies throughout — it doesn't model the MPAA.

Do employer contributions count towards the annual allowance too?

Yes. The annual allowance covers the total of your own contributions, any employer contributions, and the tax relief added to relief-at-source contributions, all added together — not just what comes out of your own pocket.