SSAS Contributions: How Much Can You Pay In?

Each SSAS member can receive contributions of up to £60,000 per tax year (the annual allowance for 2024/25) without incurring an annual allowance charge. This £60,000 covers all pension contributions made on behalf of that individual — both their own personal contributions (which attract income tax relief) and employer contributions made by the sponsoring company.

In practice, for company directors who run their own businesses, the most tax-efficient approach is often to have the company make employer contributions directly to the SSAS. These contributions are deductible against the company's corporation tax liability — effectively, the government is contributing to the pension via tax relief. The company's contribution reduces taxable profits, and the full amount (not just the after-tax amount) enters the SSAS.

If several directors are SSAS members, the £60,000 allowance applies to each of them separately. A SSAS with four members could therefore receive up to £240,000 in combined contributions in a single year — a powerful capital-building mechanism for schemes that want to build toward a significant property investment.

If you have not used your full annual allowance in the previous three tax years, you can carry forward the unused allowance and contribute more than £60,000 in the current year. The carry-forward rules can allow very substantial one-off contributions in a year when the company has surplus cash or profits — for example, following the sale of a business division or a particularly strong trading year.

For a director who has had three years of modest contributions, the carry-forward capacity can be considerable. To use carry forward, you must have been a member of a registered pension scheme in each of the years from which you are carrying forward (which the SSAS itself satisfies). Calculations should be done carefully — including accounting for employer contributions in previous years — before making a large contribution on the basis of assumed carry-forward capacity.

Carry forward is one of the most powerful tools available to business owners who want to build their SSAS rapidly. A director who can contribute £150,000 in a single year using carry-forward allowances can dramatically accelerate the SSAS's investment capacity — potentially enabling a property purchase or loanback that would not otherwise have been achievable for several more years.

SSAS employer contributions are made by the sponsoring company and qualify for corporation tax relief as a business expense — provided they are "wholly and exclusively" for the purposes of the trade. In practice, HMRC accepts that pension contributions for directors are a legitimate business expense, given that they form part of the director's overall remuneration package.

The timing of corporation tax relief depends on when the contribution is paid. To claim relief in a particular accounting year, the contribution must actually be paid to the SSAS before the end of that year. Timing contributions to fall in a high-profit year maximises the tax benefit. Employer contributions do not attract National Insurance for either the employer or the member, which gives them an additional advantage over salary as a form of director remuneration.

For a detailed view of how pension contributions can reduce a company's overall tax bill, see our article on corporation tax relief on pension contributions for directors.

For SSAS schemes with a specific property investment goal — whether purchasing trading premises, a commercial investment property, or building loanback capacity — contributions should be planned with that goal in mind. Knowing that a target property will cost £600,000 and the SSAS can borrow 50% of net assets helps set a clear contribution target: the scheme needs to build to at least £400,000 in net assets before the property becomes accessible.

A rolling five-year contribution forecast, modelling annual contributions and investment growth, can show exactly when the scheme will have enough capacity to execute a chosen strategy. This kind of structured planning is one of the advantages of a SSAS — unlike a personal pension, a SSAS can be managed with a clear corporate and investment strategy in mind. Contact our team to discuss how your contribution plan and property goals interact, or use our SSAS Loanback Calculator to model what your current fund can support.