Transferring an Aviva pension to Trading 212: check the charge first

I moved a £7,350 Aviva workplace pension into my Trading 212 SIPP. The mechanics took a few minutes in the app and one number off my Aviva statement.

What took longer was working out whether it was worth doing at all. Articles about moving a pension to a cheap SIPP tend to open with a charge of around 1% and invite you to imagine what you would save. For a lot of Aviva pots that figure is out by a factor of three, and the saving shrinks to something you would not rush for.

For other Aviva pots it is larger than the pitch suggests. Which group you are in takes about five minutes to establish with your own annual statement, and it is worth doing that before you read anyone's fee comparison, including mine.

Which Aviva pension do you hold

Aviva is a very large provider with contracts written across several decades, and the name on the letterhead tells you nothing useful. Three broad groups behave completely differently on transfer.

Modern auto-enrolment workplace pensions were set up by an employer from roughly 2012 onwards, with you in the default fund because you never changed it. These are the cheapest pensions Aviva runs, because the law caps what they can charge.

Older personal pensions and pre-2015 schemes are the opposite case. Taken out directly, or through an employer before automatic enrolment existed, they have no charge cap. These are the contracts where a transfer can be worth real money, and the ones most likely to carry guarantees you would be giving up.

With-profits funds behave differently again, because the value printed on your statement is not necessarily the value you would get on the way out.

If you do not know which you have, the annual statement says. So does MyAviva.

How far the 0.75% charge cap reaches

Since April 2015 there has been a statutory cap of 0.75% a year on the default fund of any Defined Contribution scheme used for automatic enrolment. It applies to member-borne administration charges, and it excludes transaction costs and life assurance costs. The DWP's guidance for trustees and managers sets out the detail.

Most capped schemes charge nowhere near the cap. The DWP's Pension Provider Survey 2024/25, published on 21 July 2025 from fieldwork run between December 2024 and February 2025, reported a median average annual management charge of 0.32% for multi-employer schemes and 0.24% for single-employer trusts. Group personal pensions sit inside the multi-employer figure.

So if your Aviva pot is a workplace default fund, your charge is probably nearer 0.32% than 1%.

The protection is narrower than it sounds, though. It reaches the default fund of an auto-enrolment scheme, and only its administration charges. Move out of the default fund, hold a policy that was never used for auto-enrolment, or pay charges the cap does not count, and none of it covers you.

The comparison most transfer guides get wrong

An Aviva annual management charge bundles the administration and the fund together. A Trading 212 SIPP does not charge a platform fee, and on a sterling-only portfolio the 0.15% currency conversion fee costs you nothing, but you still pay the ongoing charge of whatever you buy inside it.

Set an Aviva AMC against "free" and you are comparing a bundled number with an unbundled one. What you save is the gap between two all-in figures, and that gap is a good deal narrower than the whole Aviva charge.

Here is the same £7,350 pot run for twenty years at four different Aviva charge levels, against a Trading 212 SIPP assumed to cost 0.15% all in, which is a nil platform fee plus the ongoing charge on a mainstream global tracker. Five per cent nominal growth, no further contributions, because this is an old pot from a job you have left.

On the median multi-employer charge of 0.32%, twenty years of staying put costs £634. At the single-employer median of 0.24% it drops to £338. Both are real money on a £7,350 pot, and both are some way short of the windfall the transfer pitch implies.

Push the charge up to the 0.75% cap and the twenty-year cost becomes £2,149. On an older uncapped contract at 1% it is £2,974, which is 40% of what the pot is worth today.

The charge you are leaving is the only thing that changed between those four lines, so your own annual statement is what settles the question.

One caveat on the arithmetic. Five per cent growth is my assumption, and nobody knows what twenty years will return. A different growth rate moves all four figures, though the order they fall in holds, because the charge gap is what separates them.

What the transfer looked like

The route in the Trading 212 app is Menu, then Portfolio Transfer, then Get Started. You pick a pension transfer, choose Aviva from the provider dropdown, and type in a policy number and an estimated value.

My Aviva policy number was eight digits on the front page of the last annual statement, and it also appeared on the pension dashboard inside MyAviva. Some older Aviva paperwork calls it a plan number instead. The dropdown does not care which name your documents use.

The request ran over Origo, the electronic transfer service most large UK providers sit on. Aviva did not call me and neither did Trading 212. Trading 212's help centre article on SIPP transfers quotes two to eight weeks for cash transfers and four to twelve weeks for in-specie transfers.

An old workplace pot almost always moves as cash. The ceding scheme sells the default fund, the proceeds arrive as one sterling credit, and you start from scratch on the choosing-what-to-buy problem. Our post on why headline yield can be misleading covers the mistake people make in that first week with a lump of cash to deploy.

The checks worth more than the charge saving

Some Aviva contracts carry benefits worth many times the £634 you would save. Those are the ones to check for before you weigh any charge.

Two flags come up more than the rest on Aviva pots. Older Aviva with-profits funds can apply a Market Value Reduction when you transfer at the wrong moment, a downward adjustment made because the underlying assets are worth less than your statement balance implies. Most contracts guarantee no MVR at the normal retirement date, and transfers outside that window are fair game. The second is simpler: if the Aviva pot is your current workplace pension and your employer is still paying into it, transferring closes that off, and no charge saving comes close to covering what you give up.

The rest of the list runs to Guaranteed Annuity Rates, protected tax-free cash above 25%, a protected pension age of 55, bundled life or critical illness cover, and Defined Benefit pots above £30,000 where the FCA requires regulated advice. Our workplace pension transfer guide works through each one properly, and the FCA's pension transfer advice page explains what advice should look like and cost.

If you are 50 or over with a DC pension, Pension Wise is free and impartial.

So should you move it?

If your Aviva pot is a modern auto-enrolment workplace default and you are happy with the fund, £634 over twenty years buys you a decent holiday and changes very little else. Control over what you hold, and one login instead of four, are the stronger arguments for moving a pot like that.

An older contract outside the cap is a different question. The arithmetic gets big enough to act on, and the checklist gets more important at the same time, since those are the contracts most likely to carry guarantees.

Whichever you have, the order is the same: find the charge on your statement, then run the checklist, then decide.

Frequently asked questions

Can I transfer an Aviva pension to the Trading 212 SIPP?

Yes, if it is an uncrystallised Defined Contribution pot with no safeguarded benefits. Trading 212 runs the request over the Origo electronic transfer service, so there is no letter of authority to print. The information you need is your Aviva policy number, an estimated value, and confirmation that the pot is not in drawdown.

Where do I find my Aviva pension policy number?

On the front page of your latest Aviva annual statement, and on the pension dashboard inside MyAviva. Older paperwork sometimes calls it a plan number or a pension reference. Trading 212 accepts whichever label your documents use.

How much will I save by moving an Aviva workplace pension?

Less than most transfer guides imply, if your pot is a modern auto-enrolment workplace pension. Those sit under a statutory 0.75% charge cap, and the DWP's Pension Provider Survey 2024/25 put the median default-fund charge at 0.32% for multi-employer schemes. Against a Trading 212 SIPP holding a mainstream tracker at roughly 0.15% all in, the gap is about 0.17% a year. Older personal pensions taken out before 2015 are not covered by the cap and can charge far more, which is where the saving becomes worth chasing.

Does the 0.75% charge cap apply to my Aviva pension?

Only if it is the default investment fund of a Defined Contribution scheme used for automatic enrolment. The cap covers member-borne administration charges and excludes transaction costs and life assurance costs. An older Aviva personal pension, a self-selected fund, or a scheme that was never used for auto-enrolment can all sit outside it.

Will Aviva charge me an exit fee to transfer out?

Check your own paperwork rather than trusting any general answer, including this one. Exit charges vary by contract and by when the policy was written, and older contracts are the ones most likely to carry them. Your annual statement or a call to Aviva will give you the figure for your specific policy.

What could I lose by transferring an Aviva pension?

Guaranteed Annuity Rates, protected tax-free cash above 25%, a protected pension age of 55, bundled life cover, and with-profits value if a Market Value Reduction is in force. Any of these is worth more than the charge saving. The full pre-transfer checklist is in our workplace pension transfer guide.

The takeaway

Almost everything written about moving an Aviva pension to a cheap SIPP is written as though every Aviva pension charges the same. They do not, the range runs from about 0.24% to well over 1%, and on a £7,350 pot that range is the difference between £338 and £2,974 over twenty years.

Your last Aviva statement has the figure on it. Go and look it up before you decide anything, because no comparison written by someone who has not seen it can tell you what moving would buy you.

This is illustrative, not financial advice. Pension rules change, personal circumstances matter, investment returns are uncertain, and the right answer for me may not be the right answer for you.