Accredited official statistics

Private pension statistics

HMRC statistics on personal pensions, the estimated cost of pension tax relief, the annual and lifetime allowances, and taxable flexible payments from pensions.

• From: HM Revenue & Customs
• Published: 30 September 2021
• Last updated: 30 July 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 30 July 2026

     This page has been updated with materials for the July 2026 Private pension statistics publication

  2. 31 July 2025

     This page has been updated with materials for the July 2025 Private pension statistics publication

  3. 31 July 2024

     These statistics have been updated to include the latest year of available data. In some instances there have been revisions to previously published statistics.

  4. 27 September 2023

     The statistics have been updated with the latest outturn year available.

  5. 30 November 2022

     The number of individuals withdrawing from a pension flexibly in Q2 2022 has been amended from 2,036,000 to 508,000 (table 9). Also, we’ve linked to the consultation on HMRC’s statistics publications.

  6. 28 September 2022

     Page updated to include the latest edition of the statistics, now including the figures for 2020 to 2021 (Tables 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8) and up to the second quarter of 2022 (Table 9). We have also changed the name of the page to ‘Private pension statistics’.

  7. 23 March 2022

     Updated table 9 and its accompanying commentary

  8. 28 October 2021

     Updating the graphs with clearer aesthetics. Added a paragraph to 3.6 - Contributions in excess of the annual allowance (AA) to the Background and Methodology document. Removed the HTML for the Quality Report and added a link to a new page which holds the Quality Report.

  9. 30 September 2021

     First published.

Documents

Private pension statistics commentary: July 2026

HTML

Background and methodology

HTML

Quality report: Private pension statistics

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quality-report-personal-pensions-statistics

Tidy Data Guide

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Metadata

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Table 2

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Table 6

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Table 7

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Table 9

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Tidy Data: Table 2

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Tidy Data: Table 6

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Tidy Data: Table 7

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Tidy Data: Table 9

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Tidy Data: Tables 6.1 and 6.2

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Details

These statistics provide:

• the number of members and value of individual contributions to personal pensions
• the estimated cost of pension income tax and National Insurance contribution (NIC) relief
• statistics on annual allowance and lifetime allowance charges
• statistics on taxable flexible payments from pensions

Commentary is available in the main publication document. The methodologies used to produce these statistics are explained in the background and methodology document.

Some previous updates to these statistics can now be found on the National Archives website.