The Type 1 Pension Certificate: A Guide for GP Partners

The short answer

The Type 1 certificate, formally the Annual Certificate of Pensionable Profits, is how a GP partner's NHS pension is worked out. A partner has no salary for NHS Pensions to read off a payroll, so once a year you take the figures from your tax return, strip out what is not NHS income, and arrive at your NHS pensionable profits. The certificate then works out the contributions due on them and compares that with what was taken from the practice during the year.

Who completes one

NHSBSA's guidance says the certificate must be completed by individual GP providers (Type 1 medical practitioners) and non-GP providers "who are either partners in practice or working as a single hander".

• One certificate per contract. If you are party to more than one GMS, PMS or APMS contract, you complete a separate certificate for each. A partner at two practices files two.
• Moved practice in the year? Two certificates, one for each practice. A practice merger that changes your commissioner but not your practice needs only one.
• Partner and salaried GP elsewhere? A partner who is also directly employed as a salaried GP by another practice completes both a Type 1 and a Type 2 self-assessment. So does a GP who switched between partner and salaried during the year, each form covering its own period.
• Shareholder in a limited company holding a GMS, PMS or APMS contract? That has its own Limited Company Certificate, with separate guidance.
• Non-GP partners can pension income from only one contract, and are treated as whole-time officers, which matters for the tier (see below).

Salaried GPs, practice-based long-term fee-based GPs and career out of hours GPs are Type 2 practitioners and file a Type 2 form instead. Freelance locums use Locum Forms A and B.

The deadline, and why it is so late

The certificate runs a year behind. PCSE say Type 1 certificates are "always submitted a year in arrears", and NHSBSA's estimate form for 2025/26 states that "the 2025/26 certificate must be submitted to PCSE or the LHB by 28 February 2027".

The 2026/27 date follows the end-of-February rule rather than a published notice, so confirm it when that year's form appears. NHSBSA usually publish the certificate and its guidance around December or January.

It can only be done after your tax return. The guidance is explicit that the certificate "can only be completed after your 2024/25 personal (and, if applicable, partnership) income tax return has been completed", because its figures come from those returns. With Self Assessment due on 31 January, that leaves four weeks.

If your practice year doesn't end on 31 March, the figures are built from portions of two accounting periods, and you may have had to file a provisional tax return. From the 2024/25 year, the NHS Pension Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2025 require a partner whose certificate used a provisional figure to send a revised certificate within one month of the deadline for telling HMRC the correct figure.

What goes on it

The certificate is a spreadsheet that walks from your tax return to your pensionable profit. In outline:

1. Your income, from the tax return: your share of partnership income, any self-employed income of your own (private fees, SOLO work, locum income), employment income with a P60, and other medical income.
2. Income already pensioned elsewhere is taken out, such as a salaried post that deducted contributions at source, or locum work pensioned through Forms A and B. SOLO income is not treated as pensioned separately on the certificate: it is declared gross.
3. Non-NHS income is taken out: insurance and DWP medicals, private patients, police work, medico-legal reports, clinical trials, medical school income, and the New to Partnership Scheme payment.
4. Expenses, including your share of the practice's and your own, are deducted, with a share of them allocated to the non-NHS income. The standard method splits expenses in proportion to income, and can be used when non-NHS income is under 10% of the total and under £25,000. Otherwise an alternative method must be used and explained.
5. The employer contribution is stripped out. Practice income is assumed to include the 14.38% employer contribution, so the practice part is multiplied by 100/114.38 to reach your actual pensionable pay.

A few rules that catch people:

• The £1,000 trading allowance is not allowed. Only expenses actually incurred count, so the certificate may not match a tax return that claimed it.
• A loss is a zero. If a trading loss produces a pensionable loss, pensionable pay is treated as zero, not negative.
• Locum work in your own practice cannot go on Forms A and B. It is pensioned through the certificate, as profit share or self-employed income.
• Basis period reform: the transition profits spread over the years from 2023/24 have their own boxes, following the same proportion you used on the tax return.

What is pensionable, and what is not

GP providers must pension all their NHS GP income: income paid to them or the practice by an NHS Pension Scheme employing authority, net of expenses. NHSBSA's list includes, among others:

• Global sum or contract price, essential, additional and enhanced services, and QOF
• Primary care network income distributed to the practice, net of expenses, as with any other directed enhanced service
• Appraisal work, ICB board and advisory work, and the trainer grant
• Out of hours work for an LHB, a trust, or an out of hours provider that is an NHS Pension Scheme employing authority
• Premises payments, dispensing, and certification, collaborative and commissioned services

And they must not pension fees from, among others: the DWP, a medical school, a GP federation, an independent provider, a Local Medical Committee, the police, the Ministry of Defence, or NHS England or the ICB for the New to Partnership Scheme. Private fees, cremation fees and travel vaccinations not funded by the NHS are out too. A partner can opt out of pensioning a salaried officer post, such as a hospital clinical assistant post, but not their GP provider income.

The full list, with the edge cases for ICB and local authority work, is in Annex A and Annex C of NHSBSA's guidance notes.

Your contribution tier

Your employee contribution rate is a tier set by your pensionable pay. For a GP provider in the 2015 Scheme with no break in service during the year, the tier is based on your total NHS GP income: practice profits, SOLO work and any other practitioner income added together.

Annualisation applies if there was a break. If you were not in GP pensionable service for the whole year, the income is "added and annualised" before the tier is set:

Total GP pensionable income ÷ days of GP pensionable service × 365

NHSBSA publish an annualising calculator each year for this. Non-GP partners are treated as whole-time officers and do not annualise: their tier comes straight from their pensionable earnings from their one contract.

The tier set here also applies to your locum and salaried practitioner income. If those were pensioned at the wrong rate during the year, the correction happens through those routes, not on the certificate: contact PCSE or the LHB about locum and salaried posts, and the SOLO employer about SOLO work. For the tier thresholds, see NHS pension contribution rates for GPs.

How contributions are collected and squared up

Before the year starts, each practice sends PCSE or the LHB an Estimate of NHS Pensionable Profits / Pay for every GP and non-GP partner: for 2025/26 it was due by 28 February 2025. It includes each GP's other NHS GP income too, such as SOLO and locum work, so the estimated tier reflects all of it, and a revised estimate is needed when a partner joins.

During the year, PCSE or the LHB top-slices employee and employer contributions on account from the practice's global sum or contract price, at the estimated tier. The practice pays employer contributions at 14.38%, including the 0.08% administration levy; the rest of the employer rate is funded centrally.

After the year, the certificate compares the contributions due on your actual pensionable profits with those already paid.

• An underpayment is collected through adjustments to the practice's contract payments.
• An overpayment is repaid to the practice the same way.
• The practice, not you personally, is responsible for paying arrears, and PCSE or the LHB can recover them from future payments, even if you have since left or retired.

The "contributions already paid" figures come from your Employee Contributions Statement, which you can download from PCSE Online under the GP Payments and Pensions tab. PCSE suggest sharing it with your accountant early, so the certificate uses the figures they hold.

SOLO work has its own boxes. If the out of hours provider deducted contributions at the right tier for your total income, nothing more is needed. If not, the arrears are paid through that provider, or, where that is impractical, through the certificate, and you tell the provider you have done so.

How to submit

England. NHSBSA name PCSE Online as the easiest route, and PCSE say all pension years except 2022/23 and 2023/24 can be submitted there: log in, choose Pensions, then Type 1 Annual Certificate, then the year. Certificates can also go through PCSE's Contact Us form. Before you start, check your practice shows on the Employee Contributions Statement screen in PCSE Online; if it doesn't, check your employment shows as approved under Performer Management.

Wales. The Local Health Board is the employing authority, and certificates go to it as in previous years.

Signatures. An accountant can submit on your behalf, but PCSE only accept signed forms and return unsigned ones. You will get a case reference when PCSE receive it, and they contact you once it is reconciled or if they need more information. Keep a copy: PCSE or the LHB keep the original.

If you don't submit

NHSBSA's guidance is direct: completing the certificate is a legal requirement under the NHS Pension Scheme Regulations and the Statement of Financial Entitlements, non-completion "may have a detrimental effect on your NHS pension at retirement, and dependent's pension benefits", and the SFE says monthly contract payments may be withheld.

The practical effect shows up on your pension record. PCSE say your Annual Benefit Statement is updated each year as long as you have submitted the certificate for all previous years, so one missing year holds up every year after it, including the pension input figures you need for the annual allowance. If your record has gaps, see PCSE pension record wrong or missing.

Leaving, retiring or partial retirement in the year

• Leaving or retiring, including 24-hour retirement or opting out: you still complete a certificate for the part of the year you were a pensionable provider, with the date and circumstances recorded on it.
• Partial retirement: you are still an active member, so you still complete a certificate.
• Back to work after retirement: if you took your 1995 benefits and came back pensioning in the 2015 Scheme, you complete a certificate for that.
• Left the partnership but kept doing out of hours shifts? From the day after you stopped being a partner you are a Type 2 practitioner, and that work goes on a Type 2 form, not the certificate.

Retirement itself needs a break: a partner must cease to be a partner for at least 24 hours to draw NHS pension benefits, except for partial retirement, which needs a 10% reduction in commitment instead. See retiring as a GP.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Type 1 pension certificate?

It is the NHS Pension Scheme's Annual Certificate of Pensionable Profits, which every GP partner and single-handed GP completes each year. It works out your NHS pensionable profits from your tax return, the contributions due on them, and the balance after what was deducted from the practice during the year.

When is the Type 1 certificate due?

By 28 February, a year in arrears. The 2025/26 certificate must reach PCSE, or the Local Health Board in Wales, by 28 February 2027. The 2024/25 certificate was due by 28 February 2026.

Who has to complete a Type 1 certificate?

GP partners and single-handed GPs (Type 1 medical practitioners), and non-GP partners. A separate certificate is needed for each GMS, PMS or APMS contract you are party to. A GP who was a partner for part of the year and salaried for the rest completes a Type 1 for the partner period and a Type 2 for the salaried period.

Does a GP partner need to fill in a Type 2 form as well?

Only if you were also a Type 2 practitioner in the year, for example a salaried GP employed by another practice, or a partner who left and carried on doing out of hours work. Locum work in other practices goes on Locum Forms A and B, not on a Type 2.

Can my accountant submit my Type 1 certificate?

Yes, but PCSE only accept signed certificates and return unsigned ones. Accountants commonly prepare it, because it can only be completed after your personal and partnership tax returns for the year.

What happens if I don't submit my Type 1 certificate?

It is a legal requirement under the NHS Pension Scheme Regulations and the Statement of Financial Entitlements, and NHSBSA say monthly contract payments may be withheld. Your Annual Benefit Statement is only updated when certificates for all previous years are in, so one missing year holds up every year after it.

Sources

Checked 6 November 2026. Where a primary source disagrees with anything here, the primary source wins.

• Annual main certificate of pensionable profits 2024/25: guidance notes, NHSBSA, V1, 1 December 2025: who completes it, the 28 February 2026 deadline, every box described above, the pensionable and non-pensionable lists in Annexes A and C, annualisation, arrears, and the consequences of not submitting
• Estimate of GP and non-GP provider NHS pensionable profits/pay 2025/26, NHSBSA, V1, 7 November 2024: the 28 February 2027 deadline for the 2025/26 certificate, the estimate and its deadline, on-account deductions from the global sum or contract price, and the 14.38% employer rate
• Information for practitioners and non-GP providers, NHSBSA Member Hub: each year's certificate, guidance, annualising calculator and the GP Member Pension Guide
• GP and non-GP partners: Type 1 annual certificate, and getting ready to submit and how to submit, PCSE: submitting a year in arrears, PCSE Online, the Employee Contributions Statement and the Annual Benefit Statement condition
• The National Health Service Pension Schemes (Amendment) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/316: revised certificates where a provisional tax figure was used

A note on advice

This guide is general information, not personal financial or tax advice. NHSBSA themselves say specialist professional advice should be sought on anything uncertain; a medical accountant who prepares GP certificates is the usual person to ask.