Guidance

Claim back tax on a flexibly accessed pension overpayment (P55)

How to claim a refund in the current tax year on an overpayment of tax when you've flexibly accessed part of your pension pot.

From:
HM Revenue & Customs
Published
20 September 2023
Last updated
6 April 2025 — See all updates

If you’ve paid too much Income Tax on a flexibly accessed pension payment you can claim a refund if all of the following apply:

  • you’ve flexibly accessed your pension pot but not emptied it
  • you will not be taking regular or flexible payments before the end of the tax year
  • the pension body is unable to make a tax refund

If you’re not a UK resident for tax purposes, you do not need to fill in this form. You can check how to make a claim under a double taxation agreement.

If you’ve:

Before you start

We’ll need to know about income you expect to receive in the tax year you got your flexibly accessed pension payment (6 April to 5 April).

You should:

  • tell us about any other income you expect to get

  • use estimated figures if you do not have final figures

  • use whole numbers rounded down to the nearest pound

We’ll make checks at the end of the tax year and contact you if the amount is different.

Keep any paperwork relating to your claim until we’ve completed these checks.

If you fill in a Self Assessment tax return

If you fill in a tax return:

  • do not include any estimated Self Assessment income in this claim, unless you want us to include this in calculating your repayment
  • you’ll still need to pay any balancing payments owed and payments on account when due — you can ask us to use your repayment to lower your payments on account
  • include any repayment you’ve received on your next Self Assessment tax return
  • you must let us know when you no longer need to complete a Self Assessment tax return

If you’ve got PAYE (Pay As You Earn) and Self Assessment income, we’ll not include any Self Assessment income in calculating your repayment, unless you ask us to do so.

Information you’ll need to claim

For the tax year you’re claiming for, you’ll need to tell us:

  • the name, address and PAYE reference of your employer — if you expect to receive income from paid employment
  • the name, address and PAYE reference of your pension provider

For the same year, you’ll need to tell us how much you expect to received from:

  • employment income
  • taxable benefits from your employer
  • any UK pension income
  • any pension flexibility lump sum payments
  • self-employment profits made — if there are any
  • taxed and untaxed interest on UK savings and investment income
  • taxable state benefits — such as Employment and Support Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance, State Pension
  • dividends income from UK companies
  • any other income — including property, trusts, commissions
  • Gift Aid payments
  • any other income

If you’re not sure of the amount of taxable benefit that you’re going to receive, you can ask your employer for an estimate of the amount for the tax year.

If you’re an older person on low income, you can call the independent charity Tax Help for Older People for free tax advice.

Claim online

To use the online service, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you use the service.

Start now

If you cannot sign in

You can use our interactive guidance to fill in the form, then post it to HMRC.

You’ll need to:

  1. Get all of your information together before you start. You will fill this form in online and you cannot save your progress.

  2. Fill in the form.

  3. Print the form.

  4. Sign the declaration.

  5. Post it to HMRC.

If you do not wish to start your claim online


P55 form

PDF, 269 KB, 9 pages

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email different.format@hmrc.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

  1. Print the form.

  2. Fill it in by hand.

  3. Post it to HMRC (the address is at the end of the form).

What happens next

We’ll work out any repayment due to you. We’ll make the repayment by Faster Payments into a bank account held in your name or your nominee’s.

At the end of the tax year we’ll check again to make sure we’ve refunded the correct amount and will contact you if this is different.

Find out when you can expect to receive a reply from HMRC to a query or request you’ve made.

Updates to this page

Published 20 September 2023
Last updated 6 April 2025 show all updates

  1. The P55 form has been updated for the 2024 to 2025 tax year.

  2. The P55 form has been updated for the 2023 to 2024 tax year.

  3. Information about if you can claim a refund has been amended to confirm the 3 requirements.

  4. The planned downtime for our interactive guidance that started at 2pm on Friday 6 October 2023 will now end at 3pm on Friday 13 October 2023. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

  5. Due to planned downtime, our interactive guidance will be unavailable from 2pm on Friday 6 October 2023 to 10am on Tuesday 10 October 2023.

  6. Added translation

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