What do I need to do with opt-out forms?

Workers who choose to opt out by paper form must give the completed form to you within their opt-out period. You can check their opt-out period end date by logging into your online NEST account and selecting ‘Manage workers’. The opt-out period end date will be displayed with the worker’s enrolment details. If no opt-out period end date is shown, the opt-out period for that worker has passed.

Depending on the size of your organisation, you may wish to provide a central point of contact for your workers to send their opt-out forms or use local collection managers.

When you receive an opt-out notification form you need to check that:

• it’s been signed and dated by the worker
• the relevant boxes have been ticked
• the form was received before the end of the worker’s opt-out period.

If you receive a form that hasn’t been completed as described above but the worker is still within their opt-out period, you’ll need to return the form to the worker and ask them to submit a new one. In these circumstances the opt-out period is extended to six weeks from the beginning of the period. The worker must return a valid opt-out form to you during this extended period otherwise you won’t be able to accept the request.

You’ll need to let us know that a worker wants to opt out once you’ve received a completed opt-out form from them within their opt-out period.

The different ways to do this are:

• by editing one worker at a time online using a contribution schedule. This is suitable for a small number of opt-outs.
• by uploading a contribution schedule file to include the opt-out request. This is suitable for larger numbers of opt-outs.
• by transferring a contribution schedule file using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). This is more suitable for large employers with a high number of opt-outs.

If you receive the worker’s opt-out form within their opt out period, but you didn’t let us know until after their opt-out period ended, we’ll still recognise the opt-out as valid but we may already have invested the contributions.

If the current value of the worker’s pot is lower than the original contributions we’ll refund this lower amount, so it’s best to make sure you tell us about opt-outs as early as possible.

You’ll be legally responsible for keeping the opt-out form on file for four years. We’ll keep a record of the fact that the worker has opted out but it’ll be up to you to keep a copy of the form. For more information on all of the records you need to keep please see Once you start using NEST.