Get your pensions working harder
Important information - investment values can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. SIPP eligibility and tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and tax rules may change. You cannot normally access money in a pension until age 55 (57 from 2028). Before transferring a pension, compare all the benefits, charges and features and always seek financial advice if you’re unsure.
Bring them together in one place
Moving your pensions to our award-winning Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) can help you take control and manage your money more effectively. Plus, with our wide investment range and excellent service, you’ll have everything you need to make more of your retirement savings.
Why a Fidelity SIPP
We’ll take good care of you. Here’s just a few of the benefits and services you’ll be able to enjoy when you bring your pensions together with us.
Investment choice
Secure online account
Guidance and support
Flexible access
Expert insights
Additional benefits
Apply to transfer
Transferring isn’t for everyone. Before taking the next step, please read the following important information:
Investment values can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. This information is not a personal recommendation for a product, service or action. Before making your decision, please read our pension transfer factsheet. This explains the things you need to consider before you transfer, including fully comparing the benefits, charges and features offered. If you're unsure, please speak to one of Fidelity's advisers or another authorised financial adviser.
The Normal Minimum Pension Age (NMPA) is the earliest age most people can start withdrawing money from their personal and workplace pensions. The NMPA is currently 55 years but will increase to 57 from 6 April 2028, unless you have a Protected Pension Age or you're retiring due to ill health. After 6 April 2028, some people may keep the right to draw benefits before age 57, depending on the rules of the transferring pension scheme. Check this with your current provider before transferring.
If your current provider charges exit fees we will cover these up to a maximum of £500 - T&Cs apply.
Please make sure you have read any information provided or made available by your existing pension provider named in this application, in connection with the transfer(s).
When you must speak to a retirement specialist
If any of the following apply to you, you must speak to one of our retirement specialists before starting your pension transfer.
- Your pension has any safeguarded benefits or guarantees.
- You’ve taken all or part of your tax-free allowance or pensions commencement lump sum.
- You’re already taking an income from your pension, known as drawdown.
- You plan to take your tax-free allowance or take an income from your pension after your transfer is complete.
- If the pension plan being transferred is subject to any existing or proposed bankruptcy proceedings, earmarking, a pension sharing order or other receiving order - you should notify Fidelity of this as soon as possible.
Ways to transfer
There are two ways to transfer a pension. You should read the differences as it could have an impact on your investments. Regardless of which method you opt for, your cash or investments will remain in your tax wrapper and retain tax-efficiencies throughout the transfer process.
Transfer as cash
- The assets (investments) in your old pension will be sold and the proceeds moved to your Fidelity SIPP as cash.
- While your pension is being transferred, it won’t be subject to any potential growth or losses from market rises and falls.
- Average transfer time is 10 days if your provider uses an electronic transfer system but it could take 45 days if they don’t.
Transfer as they are
- You keep your existing investments as long as they’re available on our platform. If not, they’ll be sold and transferred to us as cash. Check if the investment is available on our platform. Before you apply, it’s best to confirm your current provider can re-register your investments to us.
- You might not be able to change your investments while they’re being transferred.
- Allow an average of 12 weeks.
Start pension transfer
Call us
Transfer online
Transfer by post
Our award-winning approach
We don’t like to blow our own trumpet, but it's nice when someone else does. We’re also proud to be recognised by Which? as a Recommended Provider for our Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) and Pension Drawdown.
Transferring your pension FAQs
Transfer your pension to Fidelity in three simple steps.
- Step 1: We’ll ask you for your details and those of your current pension provider(s).
- Step 2: You can choose your investments when you apply, during the transfer process, or once we receive your transfer application. If the investments you hold in your existing pension are offered by us and your existing pension provider allows the transfer, we can move your pension into the same funds that you currently hold. If not, you can choose to have your investments transferred to the Fidelity SIPP as cash, and then you can decide.
- Step 3: Review your details and confirm the transfer.
When we receive your transfer application we’ll send you a confirmation, then contact your providers to arrange for your investments (or cash) to be brought into your Fidelity account. Please be aware that you may be out of the market while the transfer takes place, so you could miss out on any growth or income that occurs while we complete your request.
Sometimes the value of your pension can be different to what your provider will actually send to a new provider. This might be because of guarantees that are lost on transfer or charges your current provider will take if you leave now.
For example your pension might currently be worth £100,000 but because of the type of investment you hold, there is a 5% early withdrawal charge, which would make your transfer value £95,000. Your current provider should be able to explain how the difference is calculated.
Fidelity doesn’t charge you for transferring your pension to us, but your current provider might. If they do, we’ll cover up to £500 exit fees ( T&Cs apply). Once you’ve transferred your pension to Fidelity, we’ll charge you a service fee for holding your pension with us. There may also be charges set by the company managing your funds, as well as charges for any share dealing you carry out. Read more about our SIPP charges and fees here. Depending on the type of pension you have you might need to take financial advice on whether transferring is the right thing for you and there will normally be a charge for this advice.
Changing jobs is a good time to review your pensions and make sure that you’re happy with everything as your new company will normally start a new pension for you. A pension like the Fidelity SIPP can give you a place to transfer pensions from employers to keep them all in one place, but you should also consider leaving the pension where it is or transferring to your new company pension scheme, if that is possible.
When you move your investments (minimum of £100) to us, we’ll reimburse any exit fees that your former providers charge you, up to a maximum of £500 per customer. Of course, you need to decide whether these fees will impact the future value of your pension.
Download and complete the short Exit Fees Reimbursement Form
Send the form to us at:
Fidelity International
PO Box 391
Tadworth
KT20 9FU
Please remember, you still need to complete the transfer application process online and qualify for the reimbursement.
Yes, there's a minimum transfer value:
- If the transfer is from another pension provider and you’re going to immediately start taking money from it, the minimum is £50,000.
- For all other transfers the minimum is £100. This includes:
- a cash-only transfer
- a combination of cash and existing pension funds
- a pension that you’re already taking money from
- an existing pension fund whether it is all of your fund holdings or a selection
You can transfer a wide range of pensions to Fidelity.
- Personal pensions
- Self-invested personal pensions
- Stakeholder pensions
- Defined-contribution occupational schemes
- Pension schemes already paying a retirement income (pension drawdown plans)
- Free-standing additional voluntary contribution (FSAVC) plans
- Executive pension plans (EPPs)
- Section 32 (buyout) plans
- Defined benefit schemes (for example final salary pension schemes). Please read the next question regarding advice requirements for this type of pension.
If you are in any doubt about the suitability of a pension transfer or investment you should speak to an authorised financial adviser.
If your pension has any safeguarded benefits or guarantees you must speak to our retirement specialists or one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice before transferring your pension. The value of some benefits can be substantial and are normally lost once you transfer and cannot usually be reinstated. We may, at our discretion, accept a transfer from a pension that contains such benefits, provided that our requirements have been met. If you're unsure about the type of pension you currently hold and what benefits are available to you, contact your pension provider.
Safeguarded benefits
Generally, for transfers containing safeguarded benefits, we will require confirmation that you have received appropriate financial advice and that the advice confirmed it was in your best interests to transfer. Without this, we can't accept a transfer.
Safeguarded benefits generally offer a guaranteed level of income at retirement or provide a promise about the rate of secure pension income that may be obtained from your pension pot at a future date, typically upon retirement.
They're typically found in older policies and are often valuable today as many were written at a time when interest rates were much higher and people weren’t living as long. With lower interest rates and higher life-expectancy, the guaranteed income from these plans is often much better than you could buy if you shopped around.
From a Fidelity perspective we generally consider the following to be safeguarded benefits:
- Any defined benefit pension (for example a final salary or career average scheme). These pay a retirement income based on your salary and how long you’ve worked for your employer. They are generally only available from public sector or older workplace pension schemes.
- Any pension arrangement that contains a guaranteed annuity rate (GAR) valued at £30,000 or more. This is a valuable guaranteed income sometimes offered by your own pension scheme or provider if you take a lifetime annuity with them. A GAR is likely to provide a higher guaranteed income than would normally be available on the open market.
- Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) or Reference Scheme Test benefits (RST). If you have a GMP or RST, you originally built up pension rights in an employer’s scheme that was contracted out of the Additional State Pension. When this happened the new scheme had to promise to provide you with a pension broadly equivalent to the State Pension you would have received under the Additional State Pension. You may not be able to take these benefits early unless the pension pot is already large enough to cover the cost of providing the pension. Similarly, you may not be able to transfer a pension containing GMP or RST to another scheme unless the transfer value also covers the cost of providing the GMP or RST. When you transfer a pension containing GMP or RST to another pension scheme, that scheme has no obligation to provide benefits on the same basis.
The lists above are not exhaustive and you should research the benefits available to you within your existing pension before you request a transfer.
Fidelity’s retirement specialists can give you personal advice about transferring your pension. Call us on 0800 084 5045 to discuss your needs. We’ll base our recommendations on careful analysis of the value of your transfer in relation to your personal circumstances and goals. Please note - this is a complete advice service including investment recommendations, so would not be suitable if you want to manage your own investments within your pension.
If you prefer, you can choose your own adviser and get them to complete and return the Third Party Advice Declaration to us, so we can process your request. MoneyHelper provides an online directory of regulated advisers.
Other benefits
These generally do not provide guarantees of future income at retirement but may still be valuable. You will need to provide confirmation that you are aware of the benefit you will be giving up by transferring but that you still wish to continue.
From a Fidelity perspective, examples of such benefits include:
- Protected tax-free cash (you can take more than the normal 25% of your fund as tax-free cash)
- Protected pension age (you can access your pension earlier than age 55)
- Guaranteed Annuity Rate (GAR) valued at less than £30,000 (likely to provide a higher guaranteed income than would normally be available on the open market)
- Guaranteed investment returns (a guaranteed fixed increase on your money each year regardless of investment performance)
- With-profits bonuses (if you are invested in a with-profits fund, you may benefit from annual and terminal/maturity bonuses depending on the underlying investment performance. You should consider how a transfer and the timing of it will impact the payment of those bonuses).
The above list is not exhaustive and you should research the benefits available to you within your existing pension before you request a transfer.
If your pension contains ‘other benefits’ but you still want to proceed with transferring your pension you can complete and return the Confirmation of benefits form.
If we identify any valuable benefits during the transfer process we’ll notify you and explain what we need from you before we can continue with your application. However, this could delay us in processing your application.
For free, independent and impartial information and guidance on workplace and personal pension matters visit MoneyHelper
Before you apply to transfer a pension you’ve taken retirement benefits from, you must speak to Fidelity's Retirement Service. They’ll discuss the transfer with you and prepare the application form.
We’re unable to accept an online application for these types of transfer.
