Retirement: drawing your pension

Your pension: it’s time to choose

Thinking about accessing your pension pot? Deciding how to take your retirement income? Shopping around for the best income?

The Drawing Your Pension Guide below is produced by the Money and Pensions Service which is an arm’s-length body of Government, bringing together the Money Advice Service, Pension Wise and The Pensions Advisory Service, and providing money guidance, pensions guidance and debt advice (in England).

The guide is for you if you are planning to access a pension pot built up from contributions into a personal or workplace pension. It sets out your options for using your pot(s) to provide a retirement income and the benefits and any potential risks of the different choices.

It also tells you about key actions you need to take as you approach the time you want to access your pension pot (whether you are retiring or not) and how we can help you weigh up your options for taking your pension. The pension rules are quite detailed. And they can affect different people in different ways. To see how they might affect you, please get in touch.

» YOUR PENSION: IT’S TIME TO CHOOSE

Please note: Increase from 2028 – There is an intention to link the earliest date you can take retirement benefits to the age individuals can access their State Pension, from 2028. This would mean that when State Pension age increases to 67 in 2028, the normal minimum pension age will also increase from 55 to 57. From then on it will remain 10 years below the State Pension age. The change will affect most people born after March 1973, although public service schemes for Firefighters, Police and the Armed Forces are unlikely to be affected by the change.