When your duties start
Your duties start on the day your first member of staff starts work. You are usually an employer for this purpose if you deduct tax and National Insurance from an employee's wages.
For a company, The Pensions Regulator says a sole director with an employment contract and no other staff has no duties. Duties start when you employ your first member of staff who is not a director and has an employment contract. A director without an employment contract is not counted as staff.
If two or more directors have employment contracts, they count as staff, so duties apply even with no other employees.
Who you must enrol
You must enrol any worker who is aged between 22 and State Pension age, earns at least £10,000 a year and usually works in the UK. The £10,000 earnings trigger is unchanged for 2026/27.
If someone becomes eligible later because of their age or pay, you must enrol them and write to them within 6 weeks.
Staff who do not meet the criteria are not automatically enrolled, but they can usually still join if they ask, and you cannot refuse. You must enrol them within 1 month of the request. You pay the employer contribution if they earn more than £520 a month.
What you pay in
Contributions are worked out on qualifying earnings, which for most schemes means pay between £6,240 and £50,270 a year before tax. Those limits are unchanged for 2026/27.
The legal minimum is 3% from you as the employer and 5% from the employee, a total of 8%. Your scheme rules can set higher rates.
Contributions must reach the pension scheme by the 22nd of the following month, or the 19th if you pay by cheque. You must backdate any missed payments. You may be fined for paying late or paying less than the minimum.
Postponement, opting in and opting out
You can delay enrolment by up to 3 months if you tell the worker in writing, and they can still join during that time if they ask. The notice must reach the worker within six weeks and a day of their first day of employment, or of the day they meet the eligibility criteria. If you miss that deadline, you cannot postpone.
Once someone is enrolled, they can opt out. If they ask to leave within 1 month of joining, you must take them out of the scheme within 1 month of getting their request and refund their contributions within 1 month.
You must never encourage or force anyone to opt out. After that window closes, contributions stay in the pension until retirement.
Declaration of compliance and re-enrolment
You must complete a declaration of compliance with The Pensions Regulator within 5 months after your duties start date. It is your legal duty as the employer even if someone else completes the form for you, and you may be fined if it is late or wrong.
Your re-enrolment date is 3 years after your first member of staff started. In most cases you must put eligible staff who are no longer in the scheme back into it, and write to them within 6 weeks after that date. You must also complete a re-declaration, even if nobody was re-enrolled.
Keep records of staff names and addresses, when contributions are paid in and every request to join or leave. Keep most records for 6 years, and records of requests to leave for 4 years.