Pension re-enrolment and declaration

Every three years, on a cyclical re-enrolment date you choose within a 6-month window around the anniversary, you must reassess any staff who opted out or reduced contributions below the threshold and put the eligible ones back into your pension scheme. You then submit a re-declaration of compliance to The Pensions Regulator telling them what you did.

Re-enrolment and the re-declaration are separate legal duties from your original auto-enrolment setup and do not happen automatically. TPR issues fines for missing the re-declaration deadline even where every member was correctly handled, because the paperwork itself is the requirement.

Watch out for

• Assuming re-declaration is only needed if someone was actually re-enrolled — it is required even when nobody qualifies.
• Missing the deadline because it falls three years after a date nobody wrote down at the time — set your own reminder rather than waiting for TPR to chase.
• Re-enrolling staff who left the business or genuinely should stay excluded, because the assessment was rushed rather than checked against current payroll.

Sources

• The Pensions Regulator — Re-enrolment checked 2026-09-02

See also

• Payroll, auto-enrolment and a written tips policy— this becomes part of getting open →