How Many Pensions Can You Have?

Can you have more than one personal pension?

You can have as many personal pensions as you like provided that added together all your payments / contributions do not exceed your tax break limits i.e. you cannot claim tax breaks on more than 17.5% of you income if you are under 35 and so on.

(See contribution limits for personal pensions.)

Pension Basics Contents

Can you have more than one Stakeholder pension?

You can have as many Stakeholder pensions as you like as long as you stay within the max contribution of £3,600 of your Gross earnings for all of them together.

The minimum contribution is £20 a month so theoretically you could have 15 different Stakeholder Pensions i.e. £3,600 divided by £20.. But you wouldn't really want the hassle or the accumulated charges.

You can also buy them for other people e.g. your children. (See Stakeholder Pensions for further details).

Pension Basics Contents

Can you have more than one occupational pension?

You can only be paying into / contributing to ONE occupational pension plan AT ANY ONE TIME.

However you could actually have many different former ones operating at the same time, so long as they're "dormant" i.e. you're not making payments / contributions. But they're still invested and hopefully growing for you.

(This would be if you had left previous jobs and not transferred your Occupational pension fund or started a personal pension).

Pension Basics Contents