FAQs on Entitlement

If you think you are entitled to FAS payments or were a member of a scheme that qualified for FAS and you haven’t received any information from us, please contact us on 0330 678 0000 or +44 (0)208 406 2121 if you are overseas, and we can discuss this with you.

You'll be eligible to start receiving your FAS payments at your Normal Retirement Age (NRA). This is based on your previous scheme rules and will be between 60 or 65. You may be able to take it earlier if you have ill health. For more information on ill health please read our 'Early Payments for Ill Health' booklet.

You can find your exact NRA on the FAS member website. Please access your Benefit Statement by clicking the Register button in the Member Registration section of the FAS Homepage. You can find your Benefit Statement by navigating to the My Payments section on the main menu if you’ve already registered.

You can find out how much FAS assistance you will receive by checking your benefit statement on the FAS member website.
Please access your Benefit Statement by clicking on the Register button located in the Member Registration section of the FAS Homepage. You can find your Benefit Statement by navigating to the My Payments section on the main menu if you've already registered.

Receiving FAS payments, is just like receiving an occupational pension. Therefore it could affect any state benefits that you may already receive, such as Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit and Housing Benefit among others. If you are receiving FAS payments, you should tell the office that pays your state benefits.

There is a cap on the amount of expected pension we can take into account when we work out your assistance. Only a small proportion of our members are affected by the cap, which means the vast majority of members aren’t affected.

As of 1 April 2025, the FAS cap will increase from £44,695 p.a. to £45,455 p.a. The increase reflects the level of inflation over the period.

The new cap will apply to all members retiring on or after 1 April 2025. If you’re already receiving payments from us these changes don't affect you.

If you haven't heard from us regarding your FAS payments then please get in touch with us on 0330 678 0000 or +44 (0)208 406 2121 if you are overseas.

Send us a secure message (*you need to be registered and logged in to this website in order to use this function. You'll be notified when you’ve a reply from us and this is the safest way to raise a general enquiry or complaint.)

Any payments due to you will be backdated.

When calculating how much FAS assistance we can pay you, we need to consider any payment your previous scheme has arranged for you separately. Some schemes did this by purchasing an annuity (a yearly amount paid to you for life).

If your previous scheme has purchased an annuity for you, the value of it at the date you left the scheme would have been provided to us. We then apply something called ‘revaluation’ to these annuities which is based on how this annuity would have increased through the annuity provider, between the date of you leaving the scheme and your FAS Normal Retirement Date (FNRD).

This figure is then deducted from 90 percent of your expected pension and your FAS assistance payment is the difference.

If you have any questions regarding your ‘less annuity in payment’ figure, please contact us.

Please have a look at pages 5 - 7 of our 'When Your Retire' booklet for more information about increases.

If you have any concerns about your FAS payments or the data we hold please get in touch with us on 0330 678 0000 or +44 (0)208 406 2121 if you are overseas.

Send us a secure message (*you need to be registered and logged in to this website in order to use this function. You'll be notified when you’ve a reply from us and this is the safest way to raise a general enquiry or complaint.)

These changes don't apply to defined benefit (DB) schemes. FAS looks after former DB schemes and therefore you are not able to flexibly take your benefits with us. Some members may be entitled to a tax free lump sum when they begin taking their payments.

The FAS don’t administer Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) after the date the scheme commenced winding up. From date of scheme wind up, GMP benefits are instead treated like other scheme benefits within your expected pension and normal increases apply.

Any part of your FAS expected pension that was built up on or after 6 April 1997 will be entitled to annual increases. Broadly, increases on expected pension built up before 6 April 1997 will only be payable where the former scheme paid mandatory increases on pre-97 benefits. 

 

This depends on what type of assistance payments you receive from FAS.

Some members receive ‘standard assistance’. This is where your payments are based on 90 per cent of the pension you could have expected to receive from your former scheme if it hadn’t wound up (known as your expected pension). We take into account any annuity purchased for you by the scheme and any payments made for you from the scheme, such as transfers or lump sums.

Any part of your FAS expected pension that was built up on or after 6 April 1997, and certain elements related to that part, will already be entitled to annual increases. In the past, FAS expected pension relating to pensionable service before 6 April 1997 didn’t increase in payment. However, in April 2026, Parliament passed a law to allow inflation increases relating to pensionable service before 6 April 1997 if the former scheme rules provided for mandatory pre-97 increases. More information, including when pre-97 increases will start being paid to eligible members, can be found on our dedicated page Information on pre-97 indexation.

Some FAS members don’t receive ‘standard assistance’ because their scheme could have afforded to provide more than that. Those FAS members are paid on ‘notional pension’ and the increases on their assistance depend on what their former scheme could have afforded to pay. If you are paid on this basis, you would be entitled to the higher of your notional pension or your standard assistance. Your expected pension will still receive increases as outlined above, but you may not see a difference to your payments until your standard assistance is higher than your notional pension.

Annual increases are paid in January each year, in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), up to a maximum of 2.5 per cent.

Payslips are available online via the Financial Assistance Scheme website and can be used to see how much your payments might have changed by. You’ll get a proportionate increase in your first year of retirement, if you’ve been receiving your assistance for less than twelve months.