Educational, not advice. This article explains the difference between the State Pension age timetable that is written into law and the one the government’s own forecaster uses in its projections. It is general information, not personal financial advice. Savvy Investor Guide is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Nothing here tells you when to retire or what to do about it.
What this article covers: what the law actually says about State Pension age 68, where the widely reported 2037 to 2039 date comes from, why the two differ by about seven years, who sits in the gap, the review that is running right now, and what would have to happen for the earlier date to become real.
What it does not cover: how much State Pension you will get or how to qualify for it, workplace and personal pension planning, or the separate rules on the age at which you can access a private pension. It also does not tell you your own State Pension age: the gov.uk checker does that from your date of birth.
In short
- The only State Pension age timetable that exists in law puts the rise to 68 between 2044 and 2046. It sits in Schedule 4 to the Pensions Act 1995.
- The Office for Budget Responsibility builds its long-term projections on the rise to 68 happening between 2037 and 2039 instead, about seven years earlier, and describes that as the government’s confirmed policy position.
- Asked about it in July 2026, a government spokesperson attributed the 2037 to 2039 commitment to the previous government and said the live review’s outcome cannot be pre-empted. That is a cooler description than the OBR’s.
- A third statutory review of the State Pension age has been running since July 2025. It has not reported and no reporting date has been published.
- Two previous reviews recommended earlier dates, in 2017 and 2023. Neither was acted on, so the legislated timetable has now survived both.
- There is no legislated rise to 69 at all. The OBR assumes one between 2073 and 2075, but nothing in the statute sets any pensionable age above 68.
- The rise already under way is the one from 66 to 67, running from 2026 to 2028. That one is law and it is happening now.
State Pension age 68: the date that is actually law
Start with the statute, because it is short and unambiguous. The State Pension age timetable lives in Schedule 4 to the Pensions Act 1995, in the form successive Acts have left it, and it says two things that matter here.
The first is that “a person born after 5th March 1961 but before 6th April 1977 attains pensionable age when the person attains the age of 67”. That is a flat 67 for a sixteen-year span of birth dates, and it covers a very large number of people currently in their late forties and fifties.
The second is that “a person born after 5th April 1978 attains pensionable age when the person attains the age of 68”. Between those two groups sits a transition, running through the 2044 to 2046 window, for people born in the year from 6 April 1977.
So the legislated position is straightforward. Born before April 1977? Your State Pension age is 67 under current law. Born after early April 1978? It’s 68, and you get there in the mid-2040s. That is the timetable on the statute book today, and it’s the one the gov.uk checker will give you if you put your date of birth in.
The date the public finances are planned on
Now the other one. The Office for Budget Responsibility is the independent body that produces the official forecasts for the public finances. Its Fiscal risks and sustainability report of July 2026 sets out the assumptions behind its long-term projections, and in the table of baseline policy assumptions, under State pension, it states:
“The state pension age reaches 68 between 2037 and 2039, which the Government has confirmed is its current policy position rather than the rise to 68 happening between 2044 and 2046 as is currently legislated for. The state pension age reaches 69 between 2073 and 2075.”
Office for Budget Responsibility, Fiscal risks and sustainability, July 2026, Annex B, Table B.1
Read that carefully, because the OBR is being scrupulous. It isn’t claiming the law says 2037 to 2039. It says explicitly that 2044 to 2046 is what “is currently legislated for”, and that it is modelling something different because that different thing is what the government has confirmed as its policy. The gap between the two is the whole story.
This matters more than an accounting footnote, because the OBR’s projections underpin the Treasury’s whole sense of what is affordable. If the sustainability of the State Pension is being assessed on the basis that people start drawing it seven years later than the law currently allows, then the affordability case being made in public is not the affordability case the statute book would actually deliver.
The government’s own wording is noticeably cooler
Here’s where it gets more interesting. When the report generated press coverage in July 2026, the government was asked about the earlier date. A government spokesperson said, on 15 July 2026:
“The previous government publicly committed to raising the State Pension age to 68 between 2037 and 2039, and the OBR has reflected that position for years. The State Pension age Review, which will consider what the timetable for State Pension age should be in the coming decades, is currently underway and we cannot pre-empt the outcome.”
Put the two statements side by side. The OBR describes 2037 to 2039 as a position “the Government has confirmed is its current policy”. The government describes it as something “the previous government publicly committed to”, which “the OBR has reflected for years”, and points at a review whose outcome it will not pre-empt.
Those are not flatly contradictory. A commitment can be inherited and still be technically current until something replaces it. But the difference in temperature is real, and it is worth noticing rather than smoothing over. One of these is a forecaster stating an assumption it has been given. The other is a government putting distance between itself and that assumption while a review runs. Neither of them is a decision, and neither of them changes a word of the legislation.
Who sits in the gap
This is the question most people actually want answered, and it needs a health warning before the numbers.
Under the law, the people whose State Pension age is 67 are those born after 5 March 1961 and before 6 April 1977. If the rise to 68 were brought forward by roughly seven years, a chunk of that group would find themselves facing 68 instead. Press coverage in July 2026 put the affected group at people born between 1971 and 1977.
Treat that as an estimate, not a fact. No birth-date bands have ever been published for the 2037 to 2039 scenario, for the simple reason that it has never been legislated. Every previous change to the State Pension age arrived with a detailed statutory table setting out, month by month, which birth dates attract which pensionable age. No such table exists for a 2037 to 2039 rise, so any cohort boundary you see attached to it has been worked out by someone applying the shape of previous transitions to a date that is not in law. That is a reasonable thing to do, but it is arithmetic, not entitlement.
The only birth dates that carry legal weight today are the ones in Schedule 4. If you want to know where you stand right now, the gov.uk checker is the answer, and it will give you the legislated position.
Meanwhile, the rise to 67 is happening now
One thing should not get lost in the 68 debate: the State Pension age is currently rising from 66 to 67, and that transition runs from 2026 to 2028. It is legislated, it is under way, and it is not in dispute.
People born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961 are the transitional group for that rise. Their State Pension age falls somewhere between 66 years and one month and 66 years and eleven months, depending on exactly when in that window they were born. Anyone born after 5 March 1961 has a flat State Pension age of 67 under the current law.
If you are in or near that transitional band, this is the change that affects you; the 68 debate is a question for a different generation. The gov.uk checker will give you your exact date.
What would have to happen for 2037 to 2039 to become real
Section 27 of the Pensions Act 2014 requires the Secretary of State to review the State Pension age rules from time to time, to publish a report on each review, and to lay it before Parliament. Each report has to come within six years of the last one. As part of each review the Government Actuary has to report on whether the rules mean someone reaching pensionable age can expect to spend a specified proportion of their adult life in retirement, and an independent person has to report on other relevant factors.
Two reviews have now run their course. The first, with an independent report by John Cridland, reported in 2017 and recommended bringing 68 forward to 2037 to 2039, which is where that date originally comes from. The second, with an independent report by Baroness Neville-Rolfe, reported in March 2023 and recommended a third date again, 2041 to 2043. The government of the day declined to act on it, concluding that “the current rules for the rise to 68 therefore remain appropriate and the government does not intend to change the existing legislation prior to the conclusion of the next review”, and committing to “a further review within two years of the next Parliament to consider age 68”.
That further review is the one running now. It was launched in July 2025, with an independent report led by Dr Suzy Morrissey alongside a report from the Government Actuary. Its terms of reference ask it to look at the factors government should weigh in setting the State Pension age for future decades, the merits of linking it to life expectancy, its role in long-term sustainability, and how other countries handle automatic adjustment mechanisms. Its call for evidence closed in October 2025. No reporting date has been published.
And then there is the legislative step, which is easy to overlook. A review reporting is not the same as the law changing. The review duty in the 2014 Act obliges the Secretary of State to review and report; it does not hand over any power to alter the timetable by regulations. Every acceleration of the State Pension age so far, the rise to 66 and the rise to 67, was made by a fresh Act of Parliament amending that same Schedule 4. On the record to date, moving the 68 date would mean the same thing: a review, then a government decision, then primary legislation, then a transitional table telling people their actual dates.
And there is no legislated rise to 69
The OBR’s assumption row also has the State Pension age reaching 69 between 2073 and 2075. This one deserves stating plainly, because it circulates as though it were a plan: nothing in the statute sets any pensionable age above 68. Schedule 4 tops out at 68 for everyone born after 5 April 1978, and there is no further table beyond it.
So the 69 figure has a weaker footing than the 2037 to 2039 one. The earlier 68 date at least has a stated policy position behind it, contested though its ownership now is. The 69 date is a modelling assumption about the 2070s and nothing more. It is a reasonable thing for a forecaster to assume, given that a link between longevity and pension age is exactly what the current review is examining. It is not something anyone has decided.
What to make of it
The honest summary is that there is genuine uncertainty here, and it has been sitting unresolved for nearly a decade. The 2037 to 2039 date has been in the OBR’s baseline for years. It has been recommended by one review, superseded by a different recommendation from a second, and left unlegislated by two successive governments. A third review is looking at it now.
For anyone born in the 1970s, that unresolved question is worth roughly seven years of a State Pension, and there is no way to look it up, because the answer does not exist yet. What can be looked up is the legislated position, which is the thing that would actually apply if nothing changed. Everything else is a forecast, a recommendation or a review in progress, and a headline quoting a State Pension age number rarely tells you which one it means.
FAQ
So has the State Pension age actually been raised to 68 in the late 2030s?
No. Nothing has changed in the law. The legislated timetable still puts the rise to 68 between 2044 and 2046. The 2037 to 2039 figure is the assumption the Office for Budget Responsibility uses in its projections, which it describes as reflecting the government’s confirmed policy position. A policy position is not legislation, and a review of the whole question is running now.
How do I find out my own State Pension age?
Use the gov.uk “Check your State Pension age” tool, which works from your date of birth. It gives the legislated position, which is the position that applies unless and until Parliament changes it. Note gov.uk’s own caveat on that page: “The State Pension age is regularly reviewed, so the results of this tool may change in the future.”
I was born in 1975. Which date applies to me?
Under current law, your State Pension age is 67, because the statute gives a flat 67 to anyone born after 5 March 1961 and before 6 April 1977. If the rise to 68 were brought forward to 2037 to 2039, you would be in the group most commonly described as affected. But no birth-date bands have ever been published for that scenario because it is not law, so nobody can tell you a date for it. The only date anyone can give you today is the legislated one.
Is the rise from 66 to 67 also uncertain?
No. That one is legislated and it is happening between 2026 and 2028. People born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961 are the transitional group, with a State Pension age somewhere between 66 years and one month and 66 years and eleven months. Anyone born after 5 March 1961 has a State Pension age of 67.
Could the government just bring the date forward without a new Act?
Every change to the State Pension age timetable so far has been made by primary legislation amending Schedule 4 to the Pensions Act 1995, and the review duty in section 27 of the Pensions Act 2014 does not itself create a power to vary the timetable by regulations. So on the record to date, a change would require Parliament to pass one, along with a transitional table setting out individual dates.
When will the current review report?
No reporting date has been published. The review was launched in July 2025 and its call for evidence closed in October 2025. The statutory requirement is that each report follows within six years of the previous one, and the previous one was published in March 2023.
What about the rise to 69 I have seen mentioned?
That is an OBR modelling assumption for 2073 to 2075. There is no legislation setting any State Pension age above 68; Schedule 4 stops at 68 for everyone born after 5 April 1978. It has not been proposed, recommended by a review, or decided.
Information, not advice. This article describes the legislated State Pension age timetable and the differing assumption used in official forecasts, as at 28 July 2026. It is general information and not a personal recommendation. Savvy Investor Guide is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Your own State Pension age depends on your date of birth and on legislation that may change; gov.uk is the authority on your position, and MoneyHelper offers free impartial guidance.
Key sources
- Pensions Act 1995, Schedule 4, the statutory State Pension age timetable, including the flat 67 and flat 68 cohorts.
- Pensions Act 2014, section 27, the duty to review the State Pension age and report to Parliament.
- State Pension age Review 2023, the government report that declined to change the legislated timetable.
- Third State Pension age review, the review currently under way, with its terms of reference and call for evidence.
- Check your State Pension age, the gov.uk tool that gives your own legislated date.
- Office for Budget Responsibility, Fiscal risks and sustainability, July 2026, Annex B, Table B.1, for the baseline assumption of a rise to 68 between 2037 and 2039.