Spouses overseas - claim NI credits post 1975 for state pension

ThumperCOL

This only came out in this year's budget and hasn't been well publicised outside the Forces (or even in the Forces possibly) - but basically if you were the spouse who 'served' with your Armed Service spouse in an overseas location after 1975 you can claim credits for the NI contributions you may have missed paying because you were outside the UK (don't forget these go towards your state pension).

This may be more applicable to those spouses who didn't have children while they were overseas (all depends if you could claim UK Child Benefit where you were as I believe receipt of UK Child Benefit negates the need for NI contributions in some way).

In my situation we were aware of the gap in NI contributions so paid them when we got back to the UK, but as the document states you can claim refund if you've already paid (in fact after talking to HMRC you have to apply for the credit first to confirm entitlement then you get the refund) - in our case for a 3 year overseas posting (late 90's) this amounts to about 600 quid, so am waiting with bated breath.

There is page on UK Gov website (as this is my first post won't let me post link) but if you go to the main gov uk webpage and type 'national insurance credits for partners' in the search box the relevant page will be the fifth search result.

DYOR and hope this helps

molerat

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-credits-for-partners-of-armed-forces-personnel-overseas-after-6-april-1975