Teachers’ Pensions Lump Sum Calculator

Swap part of your pension for a cash lump sum. We explain every acronym as you go. Enter the annual pensions payable at your retirement date for each section.
Tip: Use the pension amounts shown on your most recent Teachers’ Pensions statement. These are today’s values and will usually increase each year until you retire. This calculator is for planning only, not a final retirement quote.

Your pensions at retirement (annual £)

1/80ths = older Final Salary section. Automatic lump sum = 3× this pension. NPA = Normal Pension Age when this part is paid in full.
No automatic lump sum. You can create one by commutation (trading pension for cash).
CARE = Career Average Revalued Earnings. No automatic lump sum; commutation allowed.
* Default £268,275. LSA = your overall tax-free cash limit across pensions.
Commutation = swapping pension for cash. Allowed only with service from 1 Jan 2007.
* This is the usual tax-free cash limit across all pensions. The scheme’s own rules mean you can’t normally take more than about a quarter of your benefits as cash — our calculator already applies this for you.
We always apply the scheme rules and your LSA (tax-free) cap.
“Extra” means on top of the automatic 1/80ths lump sum (if you have that).
We’ll calculate the biggest lump sum that still leaves you with this income.

Teachers’ Pensions – Quick FAQs

The automatic lump sum only exists in the Final Salary 1/80ths section (usually service before 2007) and equals 3× that section’s pension. The extra lump sum is created by commutation — you give up £1/year of pension to get £12 cash. This can apply to CARE and 1/60ths, and to 1/80ths as an addition to the automatic amount.

  • 1/80ths (NPA 60) stopped on 1 Jan 2007 (includes automatic lump sum).
  • 1/60ths (NPA 65) ran 1 Jan 2007 → 31 Mar 2015 (no automatic lump sum).
  • CARE 2015 started 1 Apr 2015 and is the only scheme now building.

Each section has its own scheme limit. For CARE and 1/60ths, the max extra lump sum is roughly 4.2857× the pension in that section (formula: pension × 30/7). For 1/80ths, you can add an extra amount up to roughly 2.3571× that section’s pension (formula: pension × 33/14) on top of the automatic 3× lump sum. We also apply your HMRC tax-free limit (LSA) to the total cash.

LSA = HMRC’s Lump Sum Allowance — the maximum tax-free cash you can take across your pensions (usually £268,275 unless you have protections). Our calculator shows how much LSA your lump sum uses and warns if you’d exceed it (excess may be taxable).

Normally it doesn’t matter. The Teachers’ Pension Scheme spreads any lump sum you create proportionally across your sections (CARE, 1/60ths, 1/80ths) based on their maximums. You’ll still get the same total cash, and each section’s pension is reduced at the same rate (£1/year pension traded for £12 cash).

We’ve added an Advanced option in the calculator so you can test “what if” scenarios — for example, taking it from 1/60ths first to leave more of your CARE pension untouched. In practice, the total difference is usually small, but it helps to see the impact.

No — commutation reduces your annual pension only. Survivor and family pensions are usually based on your pension before commutation.