Form: Claim a tax refund when you’ve taken a small pension lump sum

To claim a tax refund on a small pension lump sum you’ve had you can:

• use the online service
• fill in a form on-screen, print and post it to HMRC
• print off and fill in a form by hand

To use the online service, you need a Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you use the service.

From 16 September 2016 individuals in receipt of serious ill health lump sums should use form P53Z to reclaim, in year, any overpaid tax on these lump sums.

If you’re reclaiming tax because you’ve flexibly accessed your pension pot use P53Z. This only applies if you’ve emptied your pension pot.

If you’ve only used part of your pension pot, or if you’re not working or receiving benefits, you’ll need to use form P55 or form P50Z.

Use form P53 to claim back any tax we owe you on a small pension lump sum where you’ve had either a:

• trivial commutation of a pension fund (from April 2015 this only applies to small Defined Benefit schemes such as Final Salary or Career Average)
• small pension taken as a lump sum

Do not use form P53 if you have a Pension Flexibility payment and would like to claim a refund of overpaid tax.

So that we can make sure we repay the right amount of tax to you, please fill in form P53 with details of any other income that you expect to get during the tax year. If you do not know the final figures, enter the most accurate estimates you can. Please use whole numbers, rounded down to the nearest pound. We’ll make checks at the end of the tax year and contact you if the amount is different. We recommend that you keep this paperwork until these checks are done.

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Related forms and guidance

Flexibly accessed pension payment: repayment claim (P55)
Use form P55 to reclaim an overpayment of tax when you have flexibly accessed your pension pot, but not emptied it.

Claim for repayment of tax when you have stopped working: flexibly accessed pension (P50Z)
Use form P50Z if you do not receive employment income, Job Seeker’s Allowance, taxable Incapacity Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance or Carer’s Allowance.