What happens to my pension when I die?

Your State Pension will not usually pass to anyone else if you die before reaching your State Pension ageOpens in a new window

If you’ve already claimed your State Pension when you die, it will generally stop being paid. 

But, in certain cases, your married or civil partner might be able to inherit some of your State Pension. You can use the State Pension and your partner toolOpens in a new window on GOV.UK to check if this applies to you.

What happens to your private pension after you die depends on if it's a:

• defined contribution pension

• defined benefit pension – often called a career average or final salary scheme.

You can use our tool to find out your pension type or ask your pension provider. 

If you have a defined contribution pension, you’ll be building a pot of money for you to use at retirement. 

When you die, your pension pot can usually be passed to your beneficiaries – one or more people or organisations you can choose to receive the money.

If you’ve already taken some money from your pension, your beneficiaries will usually get whatever is left. 

Your beneficiaries can usually choose to:

• take your entire pension as a lump sum

• convert your pension into a guaranteed income by buying an annuity.

They might also be able to use pension drawdown to leave the pension invested and take income as and when they need it.   

The options available will depend on your pension scheme’s rules on death benefits.

If your existing pension provider doesn’t allow an option that works best for your beneficiaries, you could consider transferring the money to a different provider.

If you’ve used your pension money to buy a lifetime annuity, you’ll receive a guaranteed income until you die. 

This income then usually stops and won’t pass to anyone else, unless you chose certain options when you set up the annuity, such as:

• a guarantee period – where the annuity will pay out for a minimum period, including to your beneficiaries if you die before it ends

• a joint-life basis – where your beneficiary will continue to receive a proportion of the income you were receiving  

• value protection – where a lump sum might be paid to your beneficiaries if your annuity cost more than it had paid out when you died.

For more information, see our guide about your annuity options.

If you have a defined benefit pension, you’ll get a regular and guaranteed retirement income. 

This means there isn’t a pot of pension money to pass on after you die. Instead, your pension scheme decides what’s paid to your beneficiaries, called death benefits. 

You can check your pension scheme rules or ask your scheme administrator about the death benefits they offer, but typical examples include:

• a dependant’s pension – a percentage of your promised pension paid as income to your partner or children up to age 23, or in one payment if the value is less than £30,000 (called a trivial commutation lump sum death benefit) 

• death-in-service lump sum – often a multiple of your salary if you’re still working for the employer the pension is linked to when you die.

If you die before taking your pension, your beneficiaries might receive a refund of the contributions you’ve paid instead, plus interest.  

If you’re already receiving an income from your pension, check if it has a guarantee period. This is the minimum period it will pay an income for, even if you die before it ends.

In this case, your beneficiaries would receive a lump sum of the guaranteed payments you should have received. This is called a pension protection lump sum.

Any money that’s inherited from your pension is usually added to your beneficiaries earnings to calculate how much Income Tax they need to pay. Your pension provider will normally deduct this from any payments they make.

But no Income Tax is usually paid if you die before age 75 and your beneficiaries: 

• take the money within two years of your pension scheme learning of your death – or the date they could have reasonably been expected to know if earlier

• receive income from an annuity that was set up after 6 April 2015 

• take money from a drawdown pot, provided you first accessed your pension after 6 April 2015

• do not take lump sums higher than the lump sum and death benefit allowance (LSDBA).

The LSDBA is £1,073,100 for most people and counts all tax-free sums taken from your pensions, before and after your death. 

This means the LSDBA will be lower if you take tax-free cash from your pension before you die, including a serious ill-health lump sum.  

It might also be higher if you applied for protection before 6 April 2025. You can check if you have lifetime allowance protectionOpens in a new window on GOV.UK.

Until April 2027, any money you have in your pension pot when you die – or any death benefits your scheme promises to pay – will not usually be counted when calculating Inheritance Tax. 

This is because most pension providers or trustees have the right to choose who receives your pension after you die, called exercising discretion. They’ll usually choose those listed on your expression of wish form, but they do not have to.

The alternative is if your scheme uses ‘direction’, where they must pay any death benefits to the people you nominate – your scheme rules should list this. In this case, the money would be counted for Inheritance Tax purposes. 

From April 2027, any money left in your pension or in death benefits might be counted when calculating Inheritance Tax.

For more information, see our guide about Inheritance Tax.

You can usually tell your pension provider or trustees who you’d like to receive your pension after you die, often by completing an expression of wish form.

Remember to keep it updated, especially if things change in your life such as getting married, divorced, having children or if someone you’ve listed dies.

If you bought a guaranteed income with your pension pot (called an annuity), any income or lump sum is only payable to the people you named when you set it up.

If you’re worried passing on your pension might affect your beneficiary’s means-tested benefits, it’s worth speaking to a retirement adviser.

Most pension providers will follow your wishes, but they usually have the right to make the final decision.

Certain death benefits might also need to follow other rules. For example, a dependant’s pension can usually only be paid to your partner or children up to age 23.

Always check what would happen if you do not nominate someone. For example, if you have a Nest government workplace pensionOpens in a new window, your pot value will normally form part of your estate if you do not complete an expression of wish form.