State pension offer - voluntary NI contributions not showing yet

Please can you clarify the position regarding voluntary NI contributions and the State pension. My client has made voluntary contributions for an extra 3 years and has been advised by the Pension Service that this payment in addition to voluntary Class 2 NICs for 2022/23 will give her sufficient qualifying years for a full state pension. She has now received her state pension offer letter but, having checked online, the voluntary contributions have not yet been allocated. She also has not yet submitted her 2022/23 tax return in order to claim the Class 2 NICs although this is in progress. Where does she stand with this? After calling the telephone number on the offer letter I was advised that this was an HMRC problem and they would need to sort it but is it too late once the offer has been made or can this be recalculated? Thankyou in advance

Hi Claire Edwards,

If the payment for Voluntary Class 3 has been made to HMRC it may be unallocated on the customers National Insurance (NI)  record,
However, when the receipt is allocated to the customers NI record it will be posted using the date it was paid.
If this happens after the customer reaches State Pension Age, they will receive the additional payment.

We are currently allocating thousands of Voluntary Class 3 receipts to customers records.

If the customer reaches State Pension age in 2023-2024, they can call the National Insurance helpline and we can arrange to take them out of Self-Assessment for NI purposes and pay direct to HMRC so that all NI is included in the State Pension Calculation.

The NI Helpline number is 03002003500 and the hours of opening are 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday.

Thank you.