What is the NHS AVC? | NHS Pension | Prudential

What is the NHS AVC?

An AVC plan is a separate pot of money you build up alongside your NHS pension, that aims to give you extra retirement benefits.
If you pay tax, you benefit from tax savings as your regular contributions are taken from your pay before tax. Tax savings will depend on your individual circumstances and rules can also change.
If you don’t pay tax, you won’t have been benefiting from tax savings on your pension contributions up to 5 April 2024. The Government has introduced arrangements for individuals who are not paying tax on their earnings to claim tax relief on their employee contributions to the scheme. This applies to contributions paid from 6 April 2024 onwards. You will need to contact HMRC to arrange this tax rebate. Claims will be processed in the tax year following the year claim, i.e. claims for the current tax year would be processed by HMRC in the next tax year.
You can pay AVC contributions regularly or as a lump sum. You can also change your contributions at any time online.
AVCs are invested in funds, so they have the potential to grow over time. It also means the value of your fund can go down as well as up so you might get back less than you put in. When it comes to choosing where to invest your AVC pot, there’s no need to feel overwhelmed. The 'Your investment options' section of this site will take you through the options available to you.
The size of your AVC pot will depend on how much you pay in, how long you pay in for, the impact of costs, charges and how well the fund(s) you invest in perform.
You have a number of options to choose from when you decide to take money from your AVC pot, which you can currently do from age 55 (57 from 6 April 2028, unless you have a protected pension age), or possibly earlier if you're in ill health.
Your AVC pot is a separate pot of money, which means you don’t have to take it at the same time as your NHS pension scheme benefits.
If you pass away before you’re eligible to take your money, we’ll pay the value as a lump sum. This will normally be to your spouse, civil partner, dependants or your legal representative.

For more information, please read your Key Features Document in the 'Applying for an AVC plan' section of this site.

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What is the NHS AVC?

What's an AVC?

Why Prudential?

Your other options

More information

NHS AVC Tax Savings

How NHS AVCs could help you

Flexible paying in, flexible paying out