The increase in the pension age to 67 starts today – that’s when you can retire

The state pension age will rise from 66 to 67 officially starting in April 2026, bringing about a long-awaited change that will force millions of workers to wait longer for retirement.

A person’s exact date of birth will affect when they start applying, and some have to delay their retirement by a month compared to someone who was born a day earlier.

The proposed changes are set to start in 2014, and will affect men and women equally. Although people can choose to retire before this date, and they can choose to do so if they have a private pension, the state pension age is the earliest anyone can start claiming a state pension.

Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, said: “The state pension is the foundation on which millions of Brits build their retirement plans.” However, the tide is shifting, thanks to a long-term increase in the state pension age to 67 starting in April this year and ending in 2028.

“In the short term it’s a form of chaos – many of those affected during the transition will be completely unaware that this is happening and have to close the funding gap, even if it’s only for a few months, as a result.”

From this month, all workers born after April 1960 will begin to see their pension age rise. What this can mean:

The correct date of birth is important, and 5 April 1960 is the last date of birth to keep the retirement age at 66.

For those born on or after April 6, 1960, this will increase to 66 years and one month, and will continue to increase by an additional month on the 6th of each month.

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This will continue until March 6, 1961, and those born on or after that date have a retirement age of 67.

Under the current plans, this will apply to those born before 5 April 1977 – the last date of birth and the retirement age of 67. After this, it will increase every month in the same way as planned next year.

This will also not be the last increase in state pension age that UK workers see in their lifetime. Current laws will see the age rise from 67 to 68 between 2044 and 2046.

It is thought this could be introduced after Labour’s upcoming pension review, which was announced in July last year. However, any change in the state pension age must come with at least 10 years’ notice.

Since 2015, supporters of the group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) have asked successive governments to provide a correction due to the insufficient communication of changes in the state pension for women born between 1950 and 1960. The group has recently been told for the second time that there will be no compensation plan.

Mr Selby said: “Given the controversy we’ve seen when the state pension has been extended before, good government communications will be vital in the coming months and years.

“You should get a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) a month before you become entitled to a state pension telling you what benefits you can claim and what benefits you can claim.

As the phase-out begins, the Center for Better Aging has warned that hundreds of thousands of seniors could be pushed into poverty as a result of the change.

Elaine Smith, head of jobs and skills at the charity for older people, said: “While raising the pension age has huge financial benefits for the Treasury to the tune of £10 billion, it also has a negative impact on the lives of people in their sixties.

“The last time the state pension rose to 66, the poverty rate for 65-year-olds doubled.

“The rise to 67 is likely to have significant implications, particularly for groups with low private pensions, so we are likely to see a sharp increase in pre-pension poverty and greater reliance on working-age benefits.”

When workers can retire in 2026, depending on when they were born: