Although it is very difficult to comp are the administrative costs of diff erent pension schemes,the admin-istrative costs play a prominent role in the current debate over old -age s ocial insurance reform across the globe.This paper presents a framework for e valuating administrative costs of i ndividual accounts based on the term structure of interest rates by analyzing the ma turity structure of administrative costs.Drawing on data from U.K.the p aper decomposed the charge ratio into acc umulation ratio,alteration ratio,annuity ratio and calculation indic ates that the charge ratio of individual accounts in U.K.is 0.44,which means many prev ious estimates of costs for U.K.have estimated lower charges.The study h elps people to know how to design indi vidual accounts with low costs.Our p olicy recommendations for China' s individual accounts emphasize that privately owned,moderately centr alized and market -oriented management model is the appropriate Choice.