The day you take on your first paid worker, you probably have a pension duty, and the Pensions Regulator does not care that the worker is a lambing student or the farmer's son. This is how auto-enrolment works for a farm in 2026/27.
If you employ anyone aged 22 to State Pension age who earns above the £10,000 earnings trigger (£192 a week) for 2026/27, you must enrol them in a workplace pension. The legal minimum is 3% from the employer and 8% in total on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. Workers can opt out within a month, you must re-enrol eligible staff every three years, and you must keep records for six years. Casual and seasonal workers are assessed every pay period. See farm wage records too.
The test is on the worker, not the size of the farm. Under GOV.UK guidance for employers, you must enrol staff who are aged between 22 and State Pension age, earn above the £10,000 trigger and normally work in the UK. The Pensions Regulator calls these people eligible jobholders. A worker is anyone with a contract of employment or a contract to do the work personally who is not running their own business.
Your duties start the day your first member of staff starts work, which is your duties start date. If you have been a one-man band and then take on a stockman, that is the day. When someone newly meets the criteria later, say a part-timer whose hours rise, you must enrol them and tell them within 6 weeks of the day they qualify.
Workers outside the trigger are not ignored. Younger workers aged 16 to 21, people from State Pension age to 74, and anyone under the earnings trigger but earning above the lower limit are non-eligible jobholders. You do not have to enrol them, but they can ask to opt in. Someone with no qualifying earnings in a pay period can ask to join too. The self-employed contractor, such as a shearing gang working under their own business, is not your worker for this purpose.
The government kept all three thresholds unchanged for 2026/27 to give stability during the Pensions Commission. The Regulator publishes them by pay period:
| Threshold | Year | Week | 4 weeks | Month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower level of qualifying earnings | £6,240 | £120 | £480 | £520 |
| Earnings trigger | £10,000 | £192 | £768 | £833 |
| Upper level of qualifying earnings | £50,270 | £967 | £3,867 | £4,189 |
These are the figures on the Pensions Regulator's earnings thresholds page. The trigger is tested against the pay in each pay period, so a worker paid weekly who earns £200 in one week is over the line for that week even if the annual total would be small. That matters on a farm where hours swing with the season.
One thing to watch: Parliament has already passed the Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023, which lets the government lower the age from 22 and drop the lower limit so contributions run from the first pound. It comes into force by regulations, and I could not find a start date, so check the Regulator's site each April.
The legal minimum from April 2019 is 3% from the employer and 8% in total, with the worker's share topped up by tax relief. It is worked out on qualifying earnings, the slice of annual pay between £6,240 and £50,270. Your scheme rules may ask for more, and some employers pay a bigger share so the worker pays less.
A worked example. A stockman is paid £2,000 in a month. The monthly lower limit is £520, so his qualifying earnings are £1,480. Your 3% is £44.40 and the total 8% is £118.40. Do the same sum on the payroll for every pay period, because pay moves with overtime.
You pay the contributions over to the scheme by the 22nd of the following month, or the 19th if paying by cheque. Put it on the same calendar as the PAYE date. Ask your accountant or payroll provider to handle the mechanics. Overtime and holiday change each period's pay, so see the holiday pay and tied housing guide for how that is worked out.
Casual and seasonal staff are the group most farms get wrong. The Regulator's guidance on assessing the workforce says a worker who is not yet an eligible jobholder has to be assessed again at the start of every pay reference period. So a harvest hand or lambing helper who is under the trigger in week one and over it in week three becomes an eligible jobholder in week three, if aged 22 or over.
You can use postponement to delay the assessment for up to three months, which suits short contracts. A worker who leaves inside the postponement period never needs enrolling. If they stay past it, they must be assessed at the end of the period and enrolled if eligible. Tell them in writing.
My advice for a farm with regular seasonal labour is to decide the policy once: pick a pay reference period, use postponement or not, and write it into the contract. Then the lambing student and the harvest team are handled the same way. The agricultural minimum wage guide sets the pay floor that feeds the assessment.
Yes. If a worker asks to leave within one month of joining, you must refund their contributions within a month. Keep the written request, because GOV.UK says opt-out requests must be kept for four years.
Opting out is not forever. Every three years you have to re-enrol eligible staff who have opted out or left the scheme. The first date is three years after your first member of staff started, and the same guidance says you must complete a re-declaration of compliance each time you carry out re-enrolment, even if nobody had to be put back in.
The usual trap is that three years passes quietly and nobody remembers. Put the date in the diary now. The livestock deadlines calendar is a good place for it next to the bovine TB test and the Red Tractor audit.
There is no exemption because the worker is family. The Pensions Regulator's family business answer says it depends on employment contracts, not relationships. A spouse or an adult child paid a wage under a contract of employment is a worker in the same way as anyone else, and the contract can be verbal or implied. If they are paid for work done, rather than getting a gift, treat them as staff.
Farm companies have a special rule. If a company has no other staff, its duties depend on how many directors have employment contracts. Duties apply if at least two do. They do not apply if only one does, or none. If there are non-director staff, the duties apply to them as normal, and the Regulator's page covers how directors are treated.
If the farm is a sole trader or partnership, there is no directors rule to apply, and the question is simply whether each person is a worker. For the pay, tax and contract side, see employing family members on the farm. For a borderline case, ask the Regulator or your accountant.
Within five calendar months of your duties start date you must complete the declaration of compliance online. Duties starting on 1 April, for example, means a deadline of 31 August. Miss it and you could be fined. You then repeat a re-declaration after each three-yearly re-enrolment.
Keep records for 6 years: staff names and addresses, the dates contributions were paid, and the scheme reference. Opt-out requests are kept for 4 years. These sit well alongside the six-year pay records in our farm wage records guide, so one filing system can cover both.
Enforcement escalates in steps. The Regulator's enforcement page describes a compliance notice, an unpaid contributions notice, then a £400 fixed penalty, followed if you still do not comply by an escalating penalty of between £50 and £10,000 a day, depending on the size of the workforce. One calendar reminder avoids most of it.
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Not automatically. Workers aged 16 to 21 are non-eligible jobholders, so you do not have to enrol them, but they can ask to opt in. Once someone reaches 22 and earns above the £10,000 trigger, or £192 a week, you must enrol them.
The legal minimum is 3% from the employer and 8% in total, including the worker's share and tax relief, calculated on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year. Your scheme may require more than the minimum, so check its rules before you set up payroll.
They must be assessed every pay period. If a seasonal worker is aged 22 or over and earns above the trigger in a pay period, they are an eligible jobholder. You can use postponement for up to three months, which suits short contracts.
Every three years, counted from your duties start date, you must re-enrol eligible staff who have opted out or left the scheme. You must also complete a re-declaration of compliance for each cycle, even when nobody needed re-enrolling.
Six years for most records, including staff details, contribution dates and scheme reference. Requests to leave the scheme only need keeping for four years. Keep them with your payroll records so you can produce them if the Regulator asks.