Re-enrolment: what you need to know
Every three years from your auto-enrolment duties start date, you must automatically re-enrol certain employees back into your pension scheme.
You may know this process as cyclical re-enrolment.
Key information
- On this page you’ll find out what re-enrolment is and what you need to consider when completing this ongoing duty.
- It outlines the steps to choose a re-enrolment date, update workforce data, assess eligibility, and communicate the process to employees.
To help you meet your employer duties, we've broken the re-enrolment process down into four easy steps.
1. Choose a date
You need to choose one suitable re-enrolment date that will apply to all eligible jobholders; you can’t choose different dates for different categories of employees, for example weekly and monthly paid employees.
You’ll need to think about the re-enrolment date you choose as it will mean that:
- this is the date active membership of the pension scheme starts for eligible jobholders who are being re-enrolled
- the joining window opens (this is the six-week period during which re-enrolment must be completed)
- contributions are kick started for eligible jobholders who are being re-enrolled
- your next re-enrolment window will be based on this date in three years’ time.
Here’s some tips to help you choose.
You could align your re-enrolment date with other key dates, for example:
- End of the tax year
- Scheme renewal date
- Opening of your employee benefits window.
Or you could avoid certain dates, for example
- Expected busy periods
- Company shutdown
- Expected periods where you might take on lots of new employees.
2. Update and review your workforce
You need to make sure your employee data is up to date so that you know who to re-enrol. It's also a good idea to check you have the correct contact details for your employees. You must check that you aren’t including anyone who has left your employment.
When your data is up to date, you’ll need to identify which employees need to be re-enrolled:
Employees who must be re-enrolled
You have a duty to re-enrol previous members of your qualifying scheme who chose to leave the scheme more than 12 months before your chosen re-enrolment date. This only applies if they’re assessed as an eligible jobholder at your re-enrolment date and/or they were an eligible jobholder at some point during their membership of the scheme. This includes:
- Eligible jobholders who were automatically enrolled and then opted out.
- Eligible jobholders who were automatically enrolled and then stopped contributing.
- Active scheme members of another qualifying scheme you have at your auto-enrolment duties start date, who then left the scheme.
- Employees who were contractually enrolled and then left the scheme.
- Scheme members whose contributions are below the automatic enrolment minimum, who meet the age and earnings criteria to be re-enrolled.
You can choose not to include certain employees from re-enrolment
For example:
- Employees who have told you that they’re leaving the business (resignation or retirement) or been given notice of dismissal by you.
- Those with Primary, Enhanced or Fixed protection.
- Employees who are identified as a director of your business. For example, a non executive director on your board of directors.
- Partners in a Limited Liability Partnership who are owners of the business they're not treated as an employee of the business.
You’ll need to make sure you document which employees you re-enrol or exclude as you’ll need to tell The Pensions Regulator (TPR) about this in your re-declaration of compliance.
3. Assess and communicate
At the re-enrolment date, you’ll need to check which employees are eligible for re-enrolment. This means that any employees you’ve not excluded need to be assessed for age and earnings and if they're eligible they should be re-enrolled.
Don’t forget an eligible employee should earn over £10,000 a year and be aged between 22 and their State Pension age (opens in new window).
You have a duty to communicate with the employees affected by re-enrolment. You’ll need to send them communications telling them that they’ll be re-enrolled, what this means for them and that they can choose to opt out.
Although you only have a duty to communicate with employees who are being re-enrolled, you may want to consider:
- Engaging with your entire workforce at this time. For example, you might want to tell existing scheme members they’re unaffected.
- To remind non-eligible jobholders and entitled employees that they can opt in.
4. Re-declare compliance
Every three years from your auto-enrolment duties start date, or last re-enrolment date, you must re-declare compliance with TPR.
- The re-declaration process is like the registration process experienced at your scheme's duties start date.
- You’ll need to do this through TPR's website, you may already have log in details.
- You’ll be asked for information about the numbers of employees in your scheme including those you’ve re-enrolled.
You must do this within five calendar months of the third anniversary of your auto-enrolment duties start date or last re-enrolment date.
If you have a question about completing your re-declaration of compliance, you should speak to TPR. There's a lot of additional information on their website (opens in new window).
Here's what else you should know about the re-enrolment process
- Postponement can’t be used at the re-enrolment date.
- Only certain employees are affected by re-enrolment.
- Of the affected employees, only eligible jobholders on your re-enrolment date need to be re-enrolled.
- You can only choose one re-enrolment date for all affected employees.
If you need further advice on choosing your re-enrolment date, deciding which employees to re-enrol or communicating with your employees you should speak to your financial adviser.
More resources to help you manage your scheme