German Pension - What Are My Options?

Tenatious

Hi,

So I worked in Germany (Berlin) for about 15 months (October 2013 - January 2014) and in this time was contributing to the state pension. I believe the pot is approximately 6000 euros.

I've tried to do some Googling regarding getting the money back so I can invest it here in the UK but am finding it very confusing.

What are my options regarding this pension? Am I able to get the lump sum refunded to me or have it transferred to my private UK pension or a UK state pension?

Thanks

JezR

German state pensions are pay-as-you-go in the same manner as the UK so there is no 'pot' - the money would have been paid over to someone currently in receipt of a pension.

Citizens of an EEA country and some others cannot get a refund, but you will in due course get a pro-rata German state pension.

Tenatious

Does that in effect mean that I have to wait until I've retired to get that 6000 euros back (I'm currently 25)?

[Deleted User]

There's a couple of bits of information on this site ... don't know how accurate it is though ....

http://www.toytowngermany.com/wiki/Pension_refunds_on_leaving_Germany

JezR

Are you sure that contribution was all into the state pension, or did this amount also include contributions to a Voluntary Occupational Pension Insurance scheme, ie a company pension equivalent?

Tenatious

On my German payslips I have, under RV-Beitrag, which I believe is the state pension contribution 5300 Euros. I didn't have any company pension or a company contribution.

bowlhead99

Tenatious wrote: »

Does that in effect mean that I have to wait until I've retired to get that 6000 euros back (I'm currently 25)?

Basically if you have made 1 year contribution to the german system you will get out, after retirement age, whatever benefits germany chooses to give to people who have made 1 year of social security contributions over their lifetime, if anything. There is no specific €6000 pot (or €5300 pot?) with your name on it.

If I pay £6000 national insurance in a year here in the UK, I am not guaranteed to get anything back. I just get credited with a year's contribution (for which someone else might have just paid £100 or so, if they were on a much lower wage than me...) and when I get to retirement age I might get paid out depending on whether my total number of years of contributions over my working life are enough to get paid a pension (35 years for a full pension but a smaller amount if you have at least 10 years but less than 35).

So, you should probably mentally write off the €6k you gave to the germans. It is a tax on the working to pay the pensions of the people who are retired. If you pay it, you too can have a pension when you retire, if you have paid enough of it for long enough.

Meanwhile, you'll have a gap in your UK national insurance record for not paying anything into our system for more than a full tax year. If you want to voluntarily pay the minimum UK national insurance contributions for that one year to close the gap, you can ask HMRC how to do that - it won't cost you anything like €6000. But as you only (currently) need 35 years credits for a full UK pension and you might have 45+ years of UK contributions by the time you retire, if you don't take any more years outside the system, then there might not be much point in doing that. I have a gap in my record from overseas working which I'm not going to bother to pay to fill.

JezR

The German insurance system is unusual in that it does permit refunds of contributions to those who are below the minimum number of contribution years (5) to qualify for benefits within 2 years of leaving Germany. However, this does not apply to residents of countries with reciprocal arrangements on social security such as other EU countries, where payment into any of these systems counts against the 5 years minimum requirements - or indeed a right to make voluntary contributions into the German system.

greenglide

So there shouldnt be a true gap in the UK contributions. As long as you tell DWP when claiming SP many years in the future that you worked in Germany and contributed to their scheme you ought to get that taken into account. Overseas contributions such as this will count as part of the 10 years to get anything to get nSP even if they dont increase the amount.

Tenatious

Ah right. I get it now!

Thanks for the help everyone