Pension advice in the UK comes in three tiers. Free, impartial guidance is available from MoneyHelper and, if you are 50 or over with a defined contribution pension, a free Pension Wise appointment. Regulated advice, a personal recommendation from an FCA-authorised adviser, is usually paid for, and it is a legal requirement before you transfer or convert defined benefit rights worth more than £30,000 into flexible, defined contribution benefits. In between sits the FCA's new targeted support regime. You can fund advice by taking £500 from a defined contribution pot tax-free, once a tax year and up to three times in total.
Guidance, targeted support and advice
The terms sound similar but carry different protection and cost.
- Guidance. General information about your options, without telling you what to do. MoneyHelper provides it free, and GOV.UK notes that "MoneyHelper do not provide financial advice";
- Targeted support. Suggestions an authorised firm can make to groups of customers with common characteristics, such as pointing out that a drawdown rate looks unsustainable. The FCA's rules came into force on 6 April 2026, and a firm needs a specific targeted support permission to offer it;
- Regulated advice. A personal recommendation based on your full circumstances, given by an FCA-authorised firm. You can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service if it goes wrong.
People searching for "pensions advisory" help are often looking for the free tier. Start there, then decide whether the decision justifies paying for advice.
Free help: Pension Wise and MoneyHelper
Pension Wise explains what you can do with money in a defined contribution pension. If you are over 50 you can book a free appointment. It does not cover the State Pension or "final salary" and "career average" schemes. MoneyHelper also offers a pension calculator and general information on choosing a pension and taking an income.
For a lost pension from a former employer, the Pension Tracing Service can help find contact details. For State Pension questions, contact the Pension Service.
When advice is a legal requirement
Section 48 of the Pension Schemes Act 2015 requires trustees to check that a member has received "appropriate independent advice" from an authorised adviser before the member converts safeguarded benefits into flexible benefits, transfers them to another scheme to acquire flexible benefits, or takes them as an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum. Safeguarded benefits are benefits other than money purchase and cash balance benefits, in practice most defined benefit rights, and flexible benefits are broadly money purchase benefits. A transfer from one defined benefit scheme to another is not caught. Regulation 5 of SI 2015/742 removes the requirement where the value of those rights is £30,000 or less.
For a final salary transfer to a defined contribution scheme above that level, the scheme will not pay out until it has evidence of the advice, so budget for it early. Money purchase pensions such as personal pensions and SIPPs have no equivalent legal requirement, although advice may still be worthwhile.
Paying for advice tax-efficiently
- Pensions advice allowance. Members of defined contribution schemes can take £500 from the pot to pay for retirement advice without an unauthorised payment charge, no more than once in a tax year and up to three times in total. Not every scheme offers it;
- Employer-arranged advice. Under section 308C of ITEPA 2003, pensions advice provided or paid for by an employer is free of income tax up to £500 per employee per tax year, provided the advice is made available on the terms the section requires, broadly to employees generally.
Example
Sarah, 58, has a £180,000 workplace defined contribution pot and a deferred final salary pension with a transfer value of £95,000. Pension Wise is free for the defined contribution pot. Because the final salary rights exceed £30,000, she must take regulated advice before transferring them to a defined contribution pension. She asks her scheme to pay £500 of the adviser's fee under the pensions advice allowance, and pays the rest herself. She can use the allowance again in two later tax years if she needs further advice.
Checking an adviser and avoiding scams
- Check authorisation. Make sure any adviser is authorised by the FCA by searching the Financial Services Register;
- Ignore cold calls. The FCA says a cold call about your pension is "illegal and probably a scam", and you should never take advice from a company that contacted you out of the blue;
- Beware early access offers. Payments before the normal minimum pension age of 55 (57 from 6 April 2028), other than on ill-health grounds, are usually unauthorised and taxed at up to 55%;
- Know how to complain. Complaints about advice or sales go to the firm first and then to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Complaints about how a scheme is run go to the provider, who has eight weeks to respond, and then to the Pensions Ombudsman.
Where tax advice fits in
Many pension decisions turn on tax rather than investment choice, and an accountant or tax adviser can answer these without recommending a product:
- Contributions. How much you can pay in within the £60,000 annual allowance, the taper and carry forward, and how to claim higher rate relief;
- Withdrawals. How much to draw each year to stay within a tax band, and the effect of the £10,000 money purchase annual allowance if you are still saving;
- Tax-free cash. Whether to take 25% up front or in stages, within the £268,275 lump sum allowance;
- Inheritance tax. The effect of most unused pension funds coming into the estate for deaths on or after 6 April 2027.
Sources: GOV.UK, Plan your retirement income: get help and Personal pensions; Pension Schemes Act 2015, section 48; SI 2015/742, regulation 5; ITEPA 2003, section 308C; HMRC's Pensions Advice Allowance tax information note; and the FCA's Advice Guidance Boundary Review, targeted support instrument (FCA 2026/5) and pension scams pages. See also our guides to pension tax relief and inheritance tax on pensions.
Acumon's private client tax team handles the tax side of retirement planning and works alongside your regulated financial adviser. Employers who want to offer pensions advice as a benefit can speak to our employment tax team.