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Lost Pensions Index

The Pensions Policy Institute estimates around 3 million lost UK pension pots worth at least £18.7 billion. Elsewhere, the Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM) reports 405,000 participants, 2.4 billion euros for the Netherlands (as at 31 December 2022) and the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office, Ministry of Law reports S$278 million for Singapore (as at 31 December 2024). Most pension systems publish no figure for unclaimed pensions at all.

This index lists the national figures we could quote word for word from the publishing body's own document, with the date we read it. Read 15 October 2026. Data under CC BY 4.0 with credit to PensionHunter (pensionhunter.ai), also as a CSV file.

The figures

Lost Pensions Index: national figures for lost pension money, with source and read date
CountryFigureUnit and currencyWhat it countsSourceRead
United Kingdomat least £18.7 billion across around 3 million potsPounds sterling (GBP), total value; with a count of potsLost pension pots in the UK and their total value: a lower-bound estimate and a new baseline, which the PPI says is not comparable with its earlier editions.Figure as at .

Pensions Policy Institute

Lost Pensions 2026: The Scale of the Challenge, 12 October 2026
"The 2026 survey estimates that there are around 3 million lost pension pots in the UK, containing approximately £18.7 billion in pension assets."
Netherlands405,000 participants, 2.4 billion eurosEuros (EUR), total value; with a count of participantsMembers of Dutch pension schemes who had reached their pension date but had not yet taken up their pension, and the value of those entitlements, at the end of 2022.Figure as at .

Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM)

AFM, Sectorbeeld Pensioenen 2024
"Eind 2022 zijn er in totaal 405 duizend deelnemers die hun pensioendatum al hadden bereikt, maar hun pensioen nog niet hebben opgeëist. In totaal gaat het om een waarde van € 2,4 miljard"
SingaporeS$278 millionSingapore dollars (SGD), total valueMoney held by the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office for people who have not come forward for it. Most is CPF money of members who died without a nomination; the rest is money due to pawners, creditors and beneficiaries of insolvent and deceased estates. It does not count the accounts of living CPF members.Figure as at .

Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office, Ministry of Law

Amount of Unclaimed Monies Held by IPTO (as of 31 Dec 2024), PDF
"As at 31 December 2024, the amount of unclaimed monies held by IPTO was $278 million, comprising $184 million of un-nominated CPF monies and $94 million of other monies."

How to read this

  • These figures are not comparable across countries. Each body counts something different, for a different year, in its own currency. Do not rank them, add them up or convert them into one total.
  • Each figure is shown as the publisher states it, in the publisher's own currency, with the date the figure describes and the date we read the source.
  • Most pension systems publish no figure for unclaimed pensions at all. A country missing from the table is not a country with no lost pensions. Our scoreboard names the body in each system that would publish one.
  • We show a figure only when we could read the source and quote it word for word. We never estimate a figure or fill a gap ourselves.

Figures we left out

These national figures exist, but we could not quote them from the source on the date we read it, so they are not in the index.

  • Australia (Australian Taxation Office): The ATO publishes a national total for lost and ATO-held super. Its website did not answer our tools when we read it on 15 October 2026, so we could not take a verbatim quote, and the newest ATO file on data.gov.au is from June 2020. The figure is on our scoreboard with its source link.
  • South Africa (Financial Sector Conduct Authority): The source page for the figure on our scoreboard no longer answered when we read it on 15 October 2026, so we could not take a verbatim quote.
  • United States (Capitalize): The only national figure is commercial research, and its source page did not answer our tools on 15 October 2026.

Cite this index

Cite as: PensionHunter, Lost Pensions Index, read 15 October 2026, https://pensionhunter.ai/lost-pensions-index

BibTeX

@misc{pensionhunter_lost_pensions_index_2026,
  author       = {{PensionHunter}},
  title        = {Lost Pensions Index},
  year         = {2026},
  url          = {https://pensionhunter.ai/lost-pensions-index},
  note         = {Read 15 October 2026. Data: https://pensionhunter.ai/data/lost-pensions-index.csv}
}

Please also cite the publishing body named on each row for the figure itself.

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