When workers want to stop paying in

There are two ways workers can stop paying in to your workplace pension – ‘opting out’ and ‘ceasing active membership’. These rules are set by the government and enforced by The Pensions Regulator.

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How workers can stop paying in to your workplace pension

1. Stopping paying in within one month (opting out)

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If a worker asks to stop paying in to their pension savings within the first calendar month of being enrolled, this is ‘opting out’. They can log in to now:u to do this.  

You’ll get an email headed ‘Changes from your workers’ in your now:u mailbox, telling you they’ve asked to opt out. You’ll also see recent worker actions, including opt-outs, in now:u when you start uploading a pension data file.  

When a worker asks to opt out you must:  

  • stop paying in to their pension savings 
  •  refund any contributions they’ve already paid, and 
  •  treat them as if they’d never been enrolled into your workplace pension.
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2. Stopping paying in after one month (ceasing active membership)

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After one calendar month has passed, workers can still stop paying in, but you can’t refund their contributions. This is ‘ceasing active membership’. Their pension savings will stay invested until they retire or transfer them out. 

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Re-enrolment

If a worker opts out, it’s likely you’ll need to re-enrol them in the future. 

Every three years  you must check whether you have any workers who qualify to be auto enrolled, but who aren’t in your workplace pension. This is a legal requirement. If you find any workers who qualify you must, by law, re-enrol them. The workers can stop paying in again if they choose to. 

Learn more about re-enrolment
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Opting back in

Workers can opt back in at any time. They can ask you to put them back into your workplace pension, or log in to now:u and choose Start saving. Your contributions will restart and so will theirs.

Frequently asked questions

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Once you’ve chosen your re-enrolment date, we’ll send you re-enrolment reminders. The date you choose needs to be within a 6 month window; 3 months before and 3 months after the third anniversary of their staging date (or last re-enrolment date)

If you have workers to re-enrol we’ll send them enrolment notices, and opt-out confirmations if any of them opt out.

You can download our ‘Re-enrolment explained’ leaflet to share with your workers.