Pension Tracing Day is an annual UK awareness campaign that nudges workers and retirees to spend a few minutes finding pension pots they've lost track of. It's a date in the calendar — held on the last Sunday in October in the UK — designed to remind people that, on average, every UK worker has paperwork sitting in a forgotten pot somewhere worth several thousand pounds.
In 2025 the day fell on Sunday 26 October. In 2026 it falls on Sunday 25 October. It's positioned at the end of British Summer Time — the day the clocks go back — to tie the "extra hour" to "spend an hour finding your old pensions". An hour is often all it takes.
The numbers behind the campaign are striking:
An estimated £31.1 billion sits in lost UK pensions
That's spread across roughly 3.3 million forgotten pots
The average forgotten pot is worth around £9,500
The number of missing pots has risen 60% since 2018
The reasons are mundane: people change jobs, move house, change names, and providers merge or rebrand. Auto-enrolment (which has been law in the UK for new starters since 2012) has created a small workplace pension at almost every job people have held. Most people now have multiple pension pots by the time they're in their 30s.
Pension Tracing Day exists because, without a prompt, most people never get round to chasing it. The campaign creates that prompt — and a national peg for news coverage and personal-finance guidance.
The day is supported by a coalition of UK pension industry bodies and consumer organisations, including major workplace pension providers and consumer-focused publications. It's an industry-led awareness day rather than a Government scheme — closer in spirit to Money Awareness Week or National Insurance Number Day than to anything statutory.
The aim is to encourage people to take action on their own pensions, by whatever route suits them — using free Government tools, reading the available guidance, or signing up to a regulated tracing service.
You don't need to wait for October — but if you're reading this in late October, here's a tidy 60-minute plan for the day.
Pull up your LinkedIn or CV and list every employer you've worked for, with rough start and end dates. Don't worry about being precise — even "summer 2007, retail, about 6 months" is enough.
For each, note:
Whether you were enrolled in a workplace pension (in the UK, almost certainly yes if you worked after 2012)
Whether you remember the provider's name (Aviva, Nest, Standard Life, etc.) — if not, that's fine
Go to gov.uk/check-state-pension, log in with Government Gateway / GOV.UK One Login, and check your forecast. This shows what State Pension you're on track to receive and any gaps in your NI record. Everyone should do this at least once a year.
For each employer you remember, you can:
Search gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details for the scheme contact details and phone them yourself
Or sign up to a tracing service that contacts all your providers, HMRC and the DWP in parallel on your behalf
If you have 1–2 employers and time on a Sunday afternoon, DIY works. If you have 4+ employers across multiple decades — or you don't fancy calling scheme administrators — a tracing service does the legwork for you.
Either way, the actual starting takes about 10 minutes. With our service: fill in the online form (name, DOB, NI number, work history). With DIY: identify the first scheme to call and start phoning.
Once your pensions are located, you'll have current values, current charges and your options for each pot. You don't have to make any decisions on Pension Tracing Day — finding them is the part that gets done now; deciding what to do is a longer-term thing.
The most common decision points:
Leave it where it is — sometimes the right answer, especially for final-salary pensions or pots with guaranteed annuity rates
Transfer it into your current pension — useful if your current scheme has lower charges
Consolidate everything into a single new plan — the route most people choose for multiple small pots, because one pension is easier to manage than five
Transfers worth £30,000+ from a defined-benefit scheme legally require regulated advice; consolidations of DC pots don't require it but benefit from it. Either way, this is where a regulated service helps.
Sunday 25 October 2026 — the last Sunday in October, the day the clocks go back in the UK.
Sunday 26 October 2025.
No. It's an industry-led awareness campaign, not a public holiday or Government scheme. Banks, offices and shops are open as normal.
The "extra hour" symbolism — spend an hour finding your old pensions. It's a marketing peg as much as anything.
No. The Pension Tracing Service® is a private FCA-authorised firm (FCA number 914746) that has been trading since 2012. The UK Government runs its own free pension tracing tool separately at gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details. The two are not affiliated.
No. The campaign is a prompt, not a deadline. You can start a free pension trace any day of the year. The hardest part of finding lost pensions is starting — the calendar date is just a useful nudge.
Same as finding one any other day. You'll be told what it's worth, what it's charging, and what your options are. You don't have to make a decision immediately — many people take weeks or months to consider whether to consolidate, transfer or leave each pot where it is.
No — tracing is free all year round. We only charge a one-off 1% fee if you choose to consolidate your pensions into a new plan, with 0.82–0.86% annual management thereafter. If we don't find anything or can't improve on what you've got, you pay nothing.
If you've meant to look at your old pensions and never quite got round to it, Pension Tracing Day is the natural prompt. An hour of effort now can surface pots you'd forgotten about — and our average customer finds several.
Related reading: Pension Finder UK guide · Lost Pension Pots: UK stats · How to find my pensions
You can also request contact details from the Pension Tracing Service by phone or by post.
The Pension Tracing Service
Telephone: 0800 1223 170
From outside the UK: +44 (0) 1782 389134
Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
Address
The Pension Tracing Service
The Lantern
High Street
Ilfracombe
EX34 9QB
Copyright 2026 by Pension Tracing Service®
The Pension Tracing Service® is a trading style of Millennial Wealth Ltd. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA number 914746). Pinnacle House, 34 Newark Road, Peterborough, PE1 5YD. Registered company number 11557299.
Profile Pensions is a trading name of Profile Financial Solutions Ltd, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA number 596398). Registered office: Norwest Court, Guildhall Street, Preston, PR1 3NU.
This service is not affiliated with the Department for Work and Pensions or any government body. When you click to get started, you'll be taken to Profile Pensions to complete your sign-up and begin the Find, Check & Transfer service. Capital at risk: the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change.
See how we handle your data.
