We're not charging a PPF levy for 2025/26

We're not charging a levy for 2025/26, marking a significant milestone in our journey to financial self-sufficiency.

We're not charging a conventional PPF levy for this year (2025/26), saving £45m for UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes and benefiting 5,000 DB schemes and their sponsoring employers.

When setting this year’s levy rules we included a provision enabling us to recalculate the conventional levy to zero if appropriate legislative changes were brought forward, and sufficiently progressed, this year.

The introduction of the Pension Schemes Bill includes measures which give us greater flexibility to set the levy. They enable us to move to zero levy while preserving our ability to reinstate the levy in future if it were ever needed.

Recognising the Bill’s parliamentary progress, and the broad support among policy makers and stakeholders for this change, our Board decided to exercise their provision to move to zero levy for 2025/26.

Moving to a zero levy in 2025/26 marks a significant milestone in our journey to financial self-sufficiency. Our robust financial position means we can take this decision and remain confident in our ability to pay current and future members’ benefits.

We'll continue to support policy makers as they consider the Bill in its remaining parliamentary stages and, in due course, engage with industry on our levy plans for 2026/27, which will be informed by the remaining passage of the Bill.

We continue to prioritise supporting the government’s consideration of PPF indexation levels, work that is unaffected by the move to zero levy.

Kate Jones, our Chair, said, “I’m pleased that we’re able to save DB schemes £45m this year. The legislative changes we’ve needed to further reduce the levy have made good progress, giving us the confidence to act decisively for this year’s levy. As we reach this significant milestone on our journey to financial self-sufficiency, we recognise the invaluable contribution levy payers have made over the past 20 years. We couldn’t have delivered the protection and peace of mind to members without them.”

Michelle Ostermann, our CEO said, “The PPF plays an invaluable role backstopping the entire DB pension system. It's testament to the PPF’s maturity that we’re now in a position to be self-funding. By moving to zero levy, I’m delighted that we’re directly supporting the government’s pension reforms, delivering savings for schemes and enabling more growth supporting investment.”

The Minister for Pensions, Torsten Bell, also commented, “Rigid rules currently leave pension schemes paying millions into the Pension Protection Fund even when extra funding is not required. The Pension Schemes Bill will sweep away those constraints. This will support better funded pension schemes and greater investment by firms.”