The best annuity rates in the UK are personal: the rate that pays you most depends on your age, health and choices, so compare quotes on your own details.
If you searched for the best annuity rates, you were probably hoping for a table with a winner at the top. No table can name one for every buyer, because a rate is an offer made to you personally. What helps is knowing how to find the best rate for you: quotes from across the market, compared like for like, before you commit.
Free guidance comes first. Pension Wise, from MoneyHelper, offers appointments to talk through what you can do with a defined contribution pension; MoneyHelper calls it impartial and backed by the government. If a person to go through your health, pots and income would help, the free form on this page can arrange a call with an FCA-authorised adviser.
Who pays the best annuity rates?
An annuity rate is the yearly income an insurer offers for the money you hand over. It is an offer made to you, on the day, not a published price, and MoneyHelper says so about its own comparison service: it shows "how much different providers would pay you, as rates often change". Any rate in an article or table is a snapshot that goes out of date.
The offer is also personal. Age, health and where you plan to live all feed into it, along with current interest rates and other market factors, and the income then turns on what you choose to buy. So no insurer pays the best rate to every buyer, and insurers say as much themselves. Aviva’s annuity page: "Different annuity providers offer different rates and choices. Shopping around can help you find the annuity that suits you best or pays you the highest income." Where rates are heading is in are annuity rates going up?; what a pot might buy is in how much annuity income a pot gives.
Your provider’s quote and the open market
GOV.UK says: "You do not have to buy your annuity from your pension provider." Buying from another insurer is known as the open market option, and two sets of FCA rules put that choice in front of you.
The first covers firms that run personal and stakeholder pensions. COBS 19.4 is aimed at encouraging shopping around, and such a firm must send an open market options statement in the months before your intended retirement date. Its guidance at COBS 19.4.15G says that when the firm writes to you about your options it should:
prominently highlight the ability to shop around and state clearly that other providers might offer pension decumulation products that are more appropriate for the client’s needs and circumstances and may offer a higher level of retirement income;
— FCA Handbook, COBS 19.4 Open market options, accessed 18 October 2026
The second rule bites when you are holding a quote. Under COBS 19.9, a firm that gives you a guaranteed annuity quote must first "generate a market-leading pension annuity quote", searching annuities available to you "from across all of the pension annuity market", and must take reasonable steps to find out whether your health or lifestyle qualifies you for an enhanced annuity. If the market quote pays more, the firm must tell you the difference in pounds and "include a statement making it clear that a retail client could obtain a higher annual income by searching the open market for a pension annuity" (COBS 19.9.7R). So a quote from your own provider should come with that comparison attached, and it is the first thing to read.
Ask your provider too about its product options and fees, and whether transferring to another provider would bring a penalty such as an exit fee; annuity fees covers the charges around buying an annuity. Some older policies carry a guaranteed annuity rate that MoneyHelper says may pay more guaranteed income than anything you could find elsewhere, so check for one before moving (see what a guaranteed annuity rate is).
How to compare annuity quotes like for like
A quote can look better than another simply because it buys less: no partner’s income, no guarantee, no yearly rise. Each feature has a price in starting income, so settle these first and ask every provider for the same:
- How much of the pot. The income depends on how much pension money you convert. MoneyHelper says a tax-free lump sum of up to 25% can come first, though each pound taken as cash leaves less to provide income; see your options at retirement.
- Lifetime or fixed term. A lifetime annuity pays an income for the rest of your life, a fixed-term one an income for an agreed period, often with the option of a lump sum back when it ends, so they are separate comparisons.
- Level or rising. A rising income climbs by a fixed percentage or tracks inflation (sometimes capped), while a level annuity usually starts higher than an increasing one. See inflation-linked annuity rates.
- Single or joint life, and the share that carries on to a partner; see joint life annuities.
- Guarantee period or value protection. A guarantee can keep paying your beneficiaries for up to 30 years after you die, as income or as a lump sum of the same value; value protection returns a lump sum when you die if the payments made so far total less than the annuity's price. Each protection tends to reduce the income you start with. See guarantee periods and value protection.
- Payment frequency and timing. Monthly, or once, twice or four times a year, paid in advance or in arrears.
- Health and lifestyle answers, given the same way to each provider. You might be offered a higher income if you have a medical condition, are overweight or smoke, had certain jobs or live in an area with low life expectancy. Ask whether each quote is enhanced or standard; see enhanced annuity rates and how to qualify.
Then line the quotes up, starting income against the features each one buys. Costs around the purchase are in annuity fees, and how annuities work in what a pension annuity is.
Which features earn their cost is a household question: whether a partner needs an income, how much of your spending is already covered, what you want to leave. To have an FCA-authorised adviser test those choices against your circumstances, ask via the form on this page.
Where to get quotes: MoneyHelper, insurers or an adviser
MoneyHelper names three routes, which can be combined: its comparison tool, getting quotes from different annuity providers yourself, or paying a regulated adviser to recommend who to buy from and which product.
MoneyHelper’s tool. Its Compare annuities page (as archived on 4 August 2026) invites you to "Search the market to see how much retirement income you could get from an annuity", with separate searches for lifetime and fixed-term annuities. The page calls it a free and impartial annuity calculator that compares rates from all providers, with a caveat that in some cases you might need an annuity broker or financial adviser to access a product, and adds that MoneyHelper receives no incentive or commission for providing the tool.
Insurers direct. MoneyHelper says "many insurance companies sell annuities", and any of them can be asked for a quote on the same terms as the others, which takes more of your time. A ranking would soon be out of date and say little about your own offer. Aviva’s own terms are set out in Aviva pension annuity rates; Canada Life’s annuity page says "A financial adviser can help you get a tailored quote for our products." They are examples, not recommendations.
An adviser. An adviser may be able to reach rates better than you could get on your own, a possibility rather than a promise, to set against the fee. Under FCA rules, advice on an annuity cannot be paid for by commission, so the adviser charges you a fee; annuity fees sets out those rules, and what pension advice costs goes further. Ask whether an adviser is independent, able to recommend products from firms across the market without restriction, or restricted, and ask for the charging structure, which MoneyHelper says an adviser must give you a copy of before providing any services. Free annuity advice covers what costs nothing.
Before you accept a quote
There is little room to change your mind afterwards: once the 30-day cooling-off period that most annuities carry has passed, an annuity cannot be cancelled. Whether to buy one at all is the question in is an annuity worth it?, and the choice against keeping the pot invested is in annuity or drawdown.
If only part of the pot buys an annuity, the rest stays exposed to markets. The value of any part left invested can rise and fall until you choose to take it: that part can fall in value as well as rise, and may be worth less than you paid in.
Pressure to sign is a warning sign. MoneyHelper warns that an annuity pushed on you through an unexpected call, visit, email or text is likely to be a scam, and the FCA’s pension scams page advises ending any call out of the blue about your pension.
Best annuity rates: questions people ask
Is there a government annuity rates calculator?
The nearest is MoneyHelper’s comparison tool, described above. Under the tool, the page says it "is backed by government so our tables and results are unbiased". It gives offers on your own details rather than a published table of rates.
Should I use an annuity broker or an adviser?
Both are options next to the comparison tool: a broker, or a regulated adviser who is paid to pick the provider and product for you. The ban on commission applies to advice; where a firm only sets up the purchase and recommends nothing, find out before you agree who pays it and what it will cost you.
How long is an annuity quote valid for?
Ask each provider how long it will hold its quote, and get the answer in writing. Rates often change, so quotes collected weeks apart are not a fair comparison.
What annuity rates can someone aged 55 to 60 get?
No rate can be given without your details, but the direction is known: GOV.UK says the insurer works the income out from your expected lifespan, meaning the number of years it must pay, so a younger buyer is generally offered less for each pound. HM Revenue & Customs says the normal minimum pension age is 55 and that it rises to 57 from 6 April 2028, with earlier access only under rules such as ill-health retirement or a protected pension age. See the best age to buy an annuity.
Do annuity rates differ for men and women?
Not on an annuity bought in England, Wales or Scotland since 21 December 2012. The Treasury’s memorandum to the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2012 says that from that date "the use of sex as a risk factor should not result in differences in individuals’ insurance premiums and benefits", and that the Regulations "omit the exemption in the Equality Act that had previously allowed gender-sensitive pricing of premiums and benefits"; legislation.gov.uk still shows that exemption omitted. GOV.UK’s list of what an insurer weighs still reads "your age and gender".
Your next step
The best annuity rate for you is the best like-for-like quote you can get across the market, once you have decided what you want it to do. Your provider’s quote should come with a market comparison, Pension Wise can explain the options for free, and MoneyHelper’s comparison tool shows offers on your details. To have quotes read alongside the rest of your retirement income, request a callback through the form on this page; the adviser who rings is FCA-authorised, and the request takes a minute or two.
Sources: MoneyHelper (compare annuities, finding the best deal, annuities explained, adviser fees, Pension Wise; archived copies, accessed 18 October 2026); GOV.UK, Personal pensions; FCA Handbook, COBS 19.4, COBS 19.9, COBS 19 Annex 2 and COBS 6.1A; FCA, Pension scams; HMRC, Increasing normal minimum pension age; Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2012 and its explanatory memorandum, and the Equality Act 2010 as revised, on legislation.gov.uk; Aviva and Canada Life annuity pages.