Guidance

Newsletter 183 — July 2026

Published 30 July 2026

Defined benefit pension scheme surplus payments to members

On 13 July 2026, the government published draft legislation for technical consultation that would allow trustees of registered defined benefit occupational pension schemes to make discretionary payments of scheme surplus directly to members as an authorised member payment.

These provisions will apply to payments made on or after 6 April 2027.

The consultation closes on 7 September 2026. Email responses to policypensions@hmrc.gov.uk.

Relief at source — annual return of information and APSS590 declaration

The deadline for submitting your annual return of information and APSS590 declaration for 2025 to 2026 to HMRC has passed. However, there are still returns outstanding from scheme administrators who have submitted interim repayment claims in 2026 to 2027.

If a 2025 to 2026 annual return of information was due for your scheme and is still outstanding, any subsequent interim repayments will be withheld until we receive both the:

• outstanding annual return of information
• APSS590 declaration

We want to remind pension scheme administrators that it’s important to use the right naming convention when submitting an annual return of information for 2025 to 2026.

Using the wrong references on either the file name or within the annual return itself will mean our systems will reject your submission and you’ll have to resubmit the return.

You can find details of how you should name your files in the:

• registered pension scheme relief at source spreadsheet
• guidance on how to complete your annual return of information for pension schemes operating relief at source

Changes to how you contact HMRC

We have replaced the structured email that you previously reached from the Pension schemes: general enquiries page with an interactive guidance tool.

The tool will help you quickly access the relevant guidance on GOV.UK. Where the guidance does not answer your question and you require HMRC assistance, you will be able to submit an online enquiry using a new form within the tool. You can still use the general enquiries page but the outcome will be more efficient.

Emails sent to pension.schemes@hmrc.gov.uk from Monday 20 July 2026 will not be replied to directly, but will receive an automated response. Please therefore use the interactive guidance tool for digital communication.

Inheritance Tax on pensions

Information sharing regulations

On 15 July 2026, the government laid the Registered Pension Schemes (Provision of Information) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026.

These regulations set out the information that pension scheme administrators and personal representatives must supply to each other, beneficiaries of pension schemes, and HMRC after the death of a pension scheme member.

This will ensure that inheritance tax liabilities on notional pension property can be identified, reported and paid correctly. This includes information needed for valuation, withholding notices and payment notices. The regulations will come into force on 6 April 2027.

Thank you for the feedback provided on these regulations during the consultation period.

There have been some amendments following responses to the earlier consultation, notably that the proposed requirement to report Death in Service benefits using Event 25 has been removed.

Pension scheme administrators will instead have to provide personal representatives with alternative information regarding excluded benefits for example, the initial annual rate of a dependants’ scheme pension or the amount of each Death in Service payment.

Further regulations

We expect to lay further statutory instruments later in 2026 to make consequential amendments to the Registered Pension Schemes (Splitting of Schemes) Regulations 2006 and the Inheritance Tax (Delivery of Accounts) (Excepted Estates) Regulations 2004.

This will ensure that the new information requirements apply to scheme administrators of sub-schemes and that estates containing notional pension property can continue to qualify as excepted estates for inheritance tax on pensions reporting where the relevant conditions are met.

Technical note

As stated in the technical note published on 11 May 2026, we will publish a further technical note later this summer.

This will contain information on withholding and payment notices, scenarios to illustrate the new inheritance tax on pensions process and address common queries raised by industry stakeholders.

If you have any feedback on the technical notes or further points you would like HMRC to consider covering in future notes, please share these with the inheritance tax on pensions mailbox ihtonpensions@hmrc.gov.uk.

Thank you for your continued engagement to ensure that bringing pensions into scope of inheritance tax works as intended. We will continue to provide updates regarding the implementation of this policy in future pension schemes newsletters.

Closure of the Pension schemes online service

The Pension schemes online service will close from April 2027. As the closure date approaches, there may be service limitations that could affect scheme administration. To avoid disruption, you should migrate all open pension schemes to the Managing pension schemes service by 31 December 2026.

Migrating now will help ensure you can continue to manage your schemes and meet your reporting obligations on the Managing pension schemes service.

If you have any schemes with an ‘open’ status on pension schemes online you will need to:

• enrol on the Managing pension schemes service (if you have not already done so)
• migrate your open schemes as soon as possible

For further support on enrolling and migrating to the Managing pension schemes service, you can watch our YouTube video.

If a scheme needs to be wound up rather than migrated, follow the guidance in Pension schemes newsletter 180 — April 2026.

Act now to ensure your schemes remain compliant before the Pension schemes online service closes.

Pension flexibility statistics

HMRC can now give more information on the number of tax repayment claim forms processed for pension flexibility payments.

From 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026, we processed:

• P55 — 10,200 forms
• P53Z — 2,001 forms
• P50Z — 411 forms

Total value repaid: £50,353,656.76

The tax repayment figures for the period 1 July 2026 to 30 September 2026 will be published in ‘Pensions schemes newsletter — October 2026’.

Delay to publication of qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes transfer statistics

The annual qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes transfer statistics, usually published in July, has been delayed this year while we carry out additional checks on the data.

We are working to verify the information to ensure the statistics are accurate before publication. We will publish the statistics and provide an update on timing as soon as possible.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.