Will my ex get my pension?

Your ex doesn't automatically get half your pension. In England and Wales there's no fixed rule: the court looks at the whole picture, including how long you were married, your ages, your other assets and what each of you needs to live on. A pension can be shared, offset against something else such as the house, or left with you. What you can't do is keep it out of the picture.

Pensions come up again and again in our community. Usually it's the person with the larger pension asking whether the years they've put in are about to be cut in half, or the person with the smaller one wondering if they're entitled to anything at all. Both questions have the same starting point: the court has wide discretion, and the aim is a fair outcome for both of you, not an equal split of each asset.

Does my ex automatically get half?

No. When a court decides how to divide money and property, it works through a list of factors set out in law, including each person's income and earning capacity, their financial needs, their ages, the length of the marriage, the contributions each made (looking after the home and children counts as much as earning) and any pension benefits either of them would lose because of the divorce (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s25).

In practice, the outcome tends to depend on two things.

• Whether there's enough to go round. If the money is tight, meeting both people's needs, especially housing and income in retirement, comes first. The pension is often the main source of retirement income for both of you, so it's more likely to be shared.
• How long you were married. After a long marriage, pensions built up during it are usually treated as shared. After a short one, with enough other assets, a court is more likely to look only at the part built up while you were together.

Where pensions are shared, the aim isn't always half the value. The Pension Advisory Group, a group of family judges and pension and family law specialists, explains that sharing is often worked out to give each of you a similar income in retirement, which can mean a very different percentage from 50% (Pension Advisory Group, 2nd edition). Our guide to pensions in divorce explains the three ways a pension can be dealt with.

Pension from before the marriage or after you split

Pension you built up before you married, or after you separated, may be treated as separate from the shared pot. Courts sometimes leave that part out when they work out a share, often by looking at how many of the years in the scheme fell during the relationship.

It isn't automatically protected, though. If including it is the only way to meet the other person's reasonable needs, the court can take it into account. That's most likely when there isn't much else, or one of you is near retirement with little pension of their own.

If you had a pension before the marriage, keep a statement showing its value at the date you married, or as close to it as you can get. Your scheme may be able to provide one. It's far easier to argue a point with a figure than from memory.

Living together before you married can count as part of the relationship, particularly where it ran straight into the marriage. Speak to a solicitor if the dates matter in your case.

Fair ways to protect your pension

You can't refuse to put a pension on the table, but you can make sure it's valued properly and argue for a fair outcome. These are the routes that hold up.

A prenuptial or postnuptial agreement

A prenup, or a postnup signed after the wedding, isn't automatically binding in England and Wales, but courts give real weight to one. Since the Supreme Court's decision in Radmacher v Granatino in 2010, a court will usually hold you to an agreement that you both entered freely, understanding what it meant, unless it would be unfair to do so in the circumstances at the time (Supreme Court press summary). In practice that means each of you having independent legal advice, sharing full details of your finances, and signing well before the wedding. An agreement that would leave one of you unable to meet their needs, particularly where there are children, is unlikely to be followed in full.

Offsetting

You keep your pension and your ex receives a larger share of something else, often the home. Plenty of couples prefer this. The difficulty is comparing like with like: a pound in a pension isn't worth a pound in a house, because of tax and because you can't spend it yet. Agree the values with advice, or the offset can be unfair to either of you. Our guide on what happens to the house explains the options for the home.

A settlement made binding in a court order

Whatever you agree, put it in a consent order. A court order with a clean break ends both people's financial claims against each other for good, including future claims against your pension (GOV.UK). Without one, an agreement isn't legally binding. Our guide to consent orders and clean break orders explains how.

A proper valuation and the right evidence

Get a Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) for every pension, and if either of you has a final salary scheme, ask whether a report from a pensions on divorce expert is needed. The CETV of a final salary pension can be well below what it will actually pay out, which can work against the person who doesn't have it, or produce an unrealistic share. Valuing it properly protects both of you from an outcome a court wouldn't accept.

What you mustn't do

When a pension is at stake, some people look for ways to make it disappear. Each of these tends to make things worse.

• Leaving a pension out. Both of you must give full and frank disclosure of everything you own, including every pension, old workplace ones included. If something is hidden, the court can draw its own conclusions about what you have, order you to pay costs, and reopen a settlement if it comes to light later. Our guide on when your ex is hiding money explains how hidden assets are found.
• Moving, transferring or cashing in a pension to defeat a claim. The court can stop a transaction before it happens and set aside one that has already happened if it was meant to defeat the other person's claim. If it happened less than three years before the application and has that effect, the court will assume that was the intention unless you can show otherwise (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s37).
• Taking money out early. Drawing a large lump sum can mean a big tax bill, and the money taken out is still counted. You may have less left to keep and still owe the same share.

If you're worried your ex is about to move money or a pension, speak to a solicitor quickly. The court can make an order to stop it.

Claims that stay open for years

A divorce ends the marriage, but it doesn't end financial claims. Unless those claims are dismissed in a court order, there is no general time limit on applying. In Wyatt v Vince, the Supreme Court allowed a former wife to bring a claim 19 years after the divorce, by which time her ex-husband had become wealthy (Wyatt v Vince [2015] UKSC 14). If you have a pension that will keep growing, a clean break order matters to you more than anyone.

There's one important exception. Someone who remarries, or forms a civil partnership, before applying for a financial order can no longer apply for maintenance or for a share of property (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s28(3)). If you're the one with the smaller pension and you plan to remarry, get advice and apply for a financial order first.

If you weren't married

When an unmarried couple splits up in England and Wales, the court can't share either person's pension, however long you lived together. There's no such thing as common law marriage (see separating when you're not married).

The nomination form still matters. Most schemes let you name who should receive benefits if you die, sometimes called an expression of wish. If your ex is still named, update it now. The same applies after a divorce: the form isn't changed by the divorce itself, which is why it's on our after-divorce checklist.

What to do now

1. List every pension each of you has, including old workplace pensions. The government's Pension Tracing Service can help find lost ones.
2. Request a CETV for each one, and find the statement closest to the date you married if you had the pension before then.
3. Get advice before you agree anything, especially if there's a final salary or public sector scheme, or one of you is close to retirement.
4. Make the agreement binding in a consent order with a clean break.
5. Update your nomination forms and your will once it's settled.

The members’ pension pack

A step-by-step pension checklist that saves your ticks, ready-worded letters asking each scheme for a valuation and updating your nominations, what to check when a valuation arrives, a worksheet comparing a pension with the house, and the questions to ask a pension expert before you pay for a report. Membership also includes the money workbook.

See the pension pack£49 a year or £7.99 a month. Or buy the money workbook on its own for £19.

Common questions

Sources

1. Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 25 (matters the court considers)
2. Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 28 (effect of remarriage)
3. Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 37 (dispositions intended to defeat a claim)
4. Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42, Supreme Court press summary
5. Wyatt v Vince [2015] UKSC 14
6. Pension Advisory Group, A guide to the treatment of pensions on divorce, 2nd edition (Nuffield Foundation)
7. GOV.UK, Get a consent order to make a financial agreement legally binding
8. Divorce etc. (Pensions) (Scotland) Regulations 2000, regulation 4
9. MoneyHelper, Divorce and separation (including pensions)

Keep reading

This guide is general information about divorce, not legal or financial advice. Laws, fees and figures change, so check the sources above and speak to a qualified professional about your situation. Facts checked 7 November 2026.