How much is Carer's Credit worth towards my State Pension?

Full answer

Carer's Credit is a National Insurance credit available to people who care for someone for at least 20 hours a week but do not otherwise qualify for Carer's Allowance (for example, because their earnings are slightly too high, or the person they care for does not receive a qualifying disability benefit but a GP or healthcare professional confirms significant care needs). Unlike Carer's Allowance, Carer's Credit is not a cash benefit at all — it simply credits a National Insurance qualifying year onto your record for each relevant tax year, counting towards both the new State Pension and potentially other contributory benefits like contribution-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance in the future. Since the full new State Pension requires 35 qualifying NI years, and pays roughly £11,975 a year (2026/27 rates) if you have the full 35 years, each individual qualifying year is worth approximately 1/35th of that, or around £342 a year of extra State Pension for life — though for someone using Carer's Credit specifically to plug a gap and reach 35 years rather than adding above the maximum, the credit is essentially the difference between getting a full pension and a reduced one. Because it is a credit, not a cash payment, Carer's Credit has no immediate value in your pocket — its value only materialises decades later when you draw your State Pension, which is precisely why it is easy for eligible carers to overlook applying at the time. Applications use form CC1 and can, in some circumstances, be backdated, so people who cared for someone in the past without claiming should check whether a retrospective claim is possible.

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