Pension Tracing Service¶
The Pension Tracing Service is a free government service that helps people find lost or forgotten workplace and personal pensions. It is run by the Department for Work and Pensions and accessed online at gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details or by phone on 0800 731 0193 (Welsh: 0800 731 0453). [source: gov-uk/find-pension-contact-details-2026-04-29.html]
The service searches a database of UK workplace pension schemes by employer name and personal pension providers by company name. It returns the current contact details for whoever administers the pension today; many old schemes have been transferred between providers over the years and the current administrator is often not the original employer. [source: gov-uk/find-pension-contact-details-2026-04-29.html]
The service does not tell you whether a person had a pension or what it is worth. It only provides the contact details so the executor or next of kin can write to the administrator with the deceased's details (full name, date of birth, National Insurance number, dates of employment with that employer) to ask for the death-benefit valuation. [source: gov-uk/find-pension-contact-details-2026-04-29.html]
Pension Tracing is most useful for older people who held multiple jobs across decades, where small pension pots from short employment stints are common and routinely forgotten. The service finds occupational and personal pensions; it does not search the State Pension record (the Pension Service handles that) or unclaimed financial assets more broadly (which the Unclaimed Assets Register covers).
Last verified: 29 April 2026 against gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details.
AfterLoss¶
Our pensions after a death guide explains how the Pension Tracing Service helps locate forgotten schemes from past employers. Information and Documents keeps the deceased's employment history and any tracing-service results together, so the executor can confirm they have found everything before closing the estate.