18 June 2026
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has confirmed in the June Employer Bulletin that they will begin contacting around 1 million individuals from August 2026 about the low earner’s pension payment.
Individuals will be identified and contacted directly, either by post or through their Personal Tax Account. For employers, there is no action required with this. Employers and payroll teams are not expected to apply for the payments, assess employee eligibility, amend payroll records, or contact HMRC on behalf of their employees.
Employees also do not need to contact HMRC in order to receive payment. If an employee raises queries, they can be reassured that HMRC will contact them directly and, once they have received communication, follow the instructions to accept their payment.
The payments are intended to be from the 2024/25 tax year onwards and some employees may have payments over multiple years. Previously referred to as the low earner’s anomaly, this was set in legislation with the Finance Bill 2023 to ensure that any low earners are not disadvantaged if their workplace pension is a net pay arrangement scheme.
With a net pay arrangement pension scheme, the pension deductions are taken before tax is calculated, meaning that the employee is given tax relief through the payroll at their marginal rate. For low earners, if there is no tax to deduct then there is no tax bill to reduce, meaning no tax relief is received on their pension contributions.
HMRC also recognises that employees may have concerns about fraudulent and scam messages and they can be reassured that HMRC communications can be checked on GOV.UK by searching check if an email you’ve received from HMRC is genuine. This initiative will be added to the list by August 2026. As a reminder, HMRC will never ask for money transfers, PIN codes, or passwords.
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