Making sense of the new minimum pension age rules

The rules surrounding the minimum age at which you can start tapping into your retirement savings have been tweaked, but are still confusing. David Prosser explains.

Bun with birthday candles
You may have to wait until 57 to celebrate drawing down your money
(Image credit: © Getty Images/iStockphoto)

When is the minimum pension age not really the minimum pension age? When you’re in a pension scheme with a “protected pension age”. But while there are plenty of these schemes, it is now too late to transfer into one.

This is a saga that has been going on since July, when the government announced that the minimum age at which you can begin drawing down private pension savings will increase from 55 to 57 in April 2028. However, the change does not apply to pension schemes offering protected pension ages: schemes where the rules explicitly state that savers will be allowed to access their cash at a specific age or on a specific date, rather than simply at the normal minimum pension age. In these schemes, the protected pension age takes precedence.

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David Prosser
Business Columnist

David Prosser is a regular MoneyWeek columnist, writing on small business and entrepreneurship, as well as pensions and other forms of tax-efficient savings and investments. David has been a financial journalist for almost 30 years, specialising initially in personal finance, and then in broader business coverage. He has worked for national newspaper groups including The Financial Times, The Guardian and Observer, Express Newspapers and, most recently, The Independent, where he served for more than three years as business editor.