You can stop paying in to NOW: Pensions at any time, but you normally get your own payments back only if you stop within the first month.

Most people who search for how to stop paying in to NOW: Pensions have just been enrolled or have a re-enrolment letter. The routes differ, and the first has a deadline. This guide covers both, what NOW does with your request, how re-enrolment works and what leaving costs. Deciding against the clock? An FCA-authorised adviser will talk your position through, free, after you enter your name on the form on this page.

Opting out or ceasing active membership: two ways to stop paying in

NOW explains to employers that “There are two ways workers can stop paying in to your workplace pension – ‘opting out’ and ‘ceasing active membership’.” Which one applies depends on when you ask. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) enforces the rules.

NOW’s wording to employersOpting outCeasing active membership
When“within the first calendar month of being enrolled”“After one calendar month has passed”
Your payments“refund any contributions they’ve already paid”“you can’t refund their contributions”
Afterwards“treat them as if they’d never been enrolled”“Their pension savings will stay invested until they retire or transfer them out.”

In that table, “you” is your employer and “they” is you. After the first month you can still stop paying in; you just do not get back what you have paid.

What happens to your NOW: Pensions savings once you stop

The money does not disappear. NOW says your savings always belong to you and stay with NOW, invested until you retire and take your money or transfer out. Charges still come out of the pot, as NOW: Pensions charges explains. The value can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than was paid in. Later options: transferring out or withdrawing money.

You can start again at any time. NOW says to log in to now:u, go to Start saving and follow the instructions, and that your workplace restarts its payments too if you earn more than £6,240 a year. GOV.UK says you can also write to your employer, though it need not accept you if you have opted in and out within the past year.

How do you stop paying in through now:u or the online form?

NOW offers two routes. If you have logged in to now:u before, you sign in and, under the name of the workplace, choose Stop paying in. If you have never logged in, NOW has a separate online stop-paying-in form, which asks for your account number or, failing that, your date of birth, last name and National Insurance number. NOW gives one set of steps for stopping, so it is the date, not the button, that decides which of the two you are doing.

Your employer hears about it from NOW. The employer’s mailbox in now:u receives an email headed ‘Changes from your workers’. NOW also warns that a refund, if you qualify for one, “will come from your workplace and not now:pensions”. The Pensions Regulator’s guidance sets the timing: the refund of pay deducted, less any tax due, is due within one month of a valid notice or, if payroll had already closed, the next available payroll run. Nobody can pressure you into this: TPR’s notice says an employer cannot ask you to opt out or force you to, and you can tell TPR if that happens.

When does the NOW: Pensions opt out period start?

NOW describes it as the first calendar month of being enrolled. The legal rule, in TPR’s guidance for employers, is more exact: the opt-out period starts on the later of the day you become an active member and the day you are given written enrolment information, and you then have one month, “from and including the first day of the opt-out period”, to give a valid notice. No opt-out notice can be given until you are an active member. Your enrolment letter should show your dates.

According to TPR, any money already paid over to the pension scheme goes back to your employer, but your employer must refund your contributions by the refund date without waiting for the scheme. TPR adds that someone enrolled by contract has no opt-out right and leaves under the scheme rules.

Re-enrolment: what happens to a NOW: Pensions opt out after three years

If you still qualify, you will be put back in. NOW says that “Every three years your workplace must, by law, check if they have any workers who qualify to be in their pension, but aren’t”, and that this includes people who stopped paying in before. NOW will write to you. GOV.UK adds two limits: nobody who has stopped qualifying is put back, and an employer need not re-enrol someone who chose to leave the scheme in the 12 months before the re-enrolment date, though it can choose to.

Re-enrolment brings a new window. NOW says that if you tell it you want to stop paying in “during the 1 month period shown in your re-enrolment letter, you will be treated as if you had never been in the pension”. Miss that date and you are back to ceasing active membership. NOW also says there is nothing you can do to prevent re-enrolment as long as you qualify; to stay out, you repeat the request each time. The wider cycle is in the auto-enrolment rules guide.

What does stopping payments into NOW: Pensions cost you?

NOW lists three losses: the chance to build up savings, “extra money from your workplace – at least 3% of your qualifying earnings”, and tax relief. It says plainly that if you stop paying in, “your workplace stops paying in too”. Against that, your take-home pay rises. How much is at stake depends on your pay and on how your employer works out contributions. Pricing up what leaving costs against what it saves is a job an adviser can do with you; the short form here arranges the call, which is free.

For comparison, NOW states the legal minimum for auto-enrolment pensions as 8% of qualifying earnings, of which the workplace must pay at least 3%. Whether a pension is worth having at all is a wider question, covered in is a workplace pension worth it, and the tax side is in pension tax relief.

Paying less, early re-enrolment and other NOW: Pensions questions

What if my request to stop is turned down?

TPR says an employer given an invalid opt-out notice must tell you why it is invalid, and in that case the one-month opt-out period is extended to six weeks.

Can I pay less instead of stopping?

GOV.UK says you may be able to reduce your payments for a short time, but that you should check with your employer and your pension provider. Pausing your pension contributions covers the options.

Can my employer re-enrol me sooner than three years?

GOV.UK says re-enrolment must happen every three years from the date you first enrolled, “or they can choose to do it sooner”.

Where can I get free guidance first?

MoneyHelper and Pension Wise give free guidance. For a person’s view instead, the short form here sets up a call, and the adviser rings you at no cost.

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