State pension having spent 2 years working in Ireland

molerat

You will only be able to fill one of those years, 2006-07.   2005-06 is outside of the available to purchase window.  

But with 21 years left to get the required 6 (5 after 2023-24 which is likely already in the bag) why would you spend good money purchasing something that is unlikely to be of any real benefit as you will probably get enough years going forward and in any case possibly not actually live long enough to see any benefit ?  Do you intend working until April 2029 when you will still be only 52/53 ?

pinnks

You can only use the Irish years to help you get past the 10-year requirement for the new state pension (called aggregation) - they will not change the amount of your UK pension and, as you already have more than 10 UK years aggregation is irrelevant.

However, you should get a pension from Ireland as aggregation works for the pension calculations of both countries, so your full UK years at the relevant date will be added to your Irish years to calculate a theoretical amount of pension.  That will then be pro-rated to your actual Irish years - in simple terms 2 years worth of Irish pension.

QrizB

ozlow said:

So I need another 6 full years to get the full state pension, but it would be nice if I could qualify in 4 by using my 2 missing Ireland years.

Are you planning to stop working in four years time? Or are you planning to work for at least six more years?

You'll continue to pay NI for as long as you work and earn more than the threshold, so whether it takes four years or six might not matter.

Buying an extra year that you don't need to buy is just a waste of money.

Beddie

ozlow said:

From the state pension forecast:
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-your-state-pension/account

"Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023

£171.07 a week

Forecast if you contribute another 6 years before 5 April 2044

£203.85 a week

£203.85 is the most you can get"

So I need another 6 full years to get the full state pension, but it would be nice if I could qualify in 4 by using my 2 missing Ireland years.

Surely you're going to work for at least 6 more years before 2044, in which case those missing 2 are really not worth the effort of chasing.

ozlow

pinnks said:

You can only use the Irish years to help you get past the 10-year requirement for the new state pension (called aggregation) - they will not change the amount of your UK pension and, as you already have more than 10 UK years aggregation is irrelevant.

However, you should get a pension from Ireland as aggregation works for the pension calculations of both countries, so your full UK years at the relevant date will be added to your Irish years to calculate a theoretical amount of pension.  That will then be pro-rated to your actual Irish years - in simple terms 2 years worth of Irish pension.

This is the answer.

Yesterday I found this site and emailed them through the online form (same day response from a government agency, even though they had a typical up to 10 working day response time)
https://www.gov.uk/international-pension-centre

this was the main part of their email reply:
"Reciprocal agreement

When calculating State Pension entitlement, countries can exchange their

National Insurance records and use foreign insurance to make sure that

customer meets that country's minimum contribution conditions.

From 6 April 2016 you will need at least 10 qualifying years to receive any UK

State Pension. If you do not have 10 years the reciprocal agreements will be

considered to see if they can help you achieve the minimum number of years

needed but the years from contributions made overseas will not count towards

your new State Pension amount. You can also use NI contributions made in

the UK to satisfy the minimum qualifying period to receive a Pension from an

EEA country, or other country where the UK has a reciprocal agreement.

If you already have 10 qualifying years on your UK National Insurance record

the reciprocal agreement may not need to be looked at.

Contributions paid in different countries are not added together to pay one

single pension. Pensions are paid separately by each country that the

customer has paid into.

If you’ve worked in several countries, you may have accumulated pension

rights in each of them.

You’ll have to apply to the pension authority in the country where you’re living

or you last worked. If you’ve never worked in the country where you’re living,

your host country will forward your claim to the one you last worked in. That

country is then responsible for processing your claim and bringing together

records of your contributions from all the countries you worked in.

Every country has its own rules. The age that a customer can start to get their

State Pension may also be different in other countries. You will need to

contact the countries that you have paid contributions in, and they will advise

of your Pension entitlement under their rules."

eastcorkram

What's the answer to the question about six years? Or four years. What are you planning to do at that point? Just stop working? 

ozlow

Thanks all for your help.

The initial title of my thread was too generic, but no I am not planning on buying the one available remaining year 2006, only wanting to see if I could get the credit for it.

ozlow

eastcorkram said:

What's the answer to the question about six years? Or four years. What are you planning to do at that point? Just stop working? 

As Piinks says, I can't get credit towards uk state pension NI records, so 6 years it is. It's mainly about the flexibility, not any hard and fast statements about when I will retire, or if this will force me to work 2 extra years when I don't want to.

The answer is that you can only get credit if you have under the 10 years threshold eg from big post above:
"If you do not have 10 years the reciprocal agreements will be considered to see if they can help you achieve the minimum number of years needed but the years from contributions made overseas will not count towards your new State Pension amount"

At retirement time I can claim for the 2 years of credit from Irish state pension. Not clear on exactly how that works, but again from the big post:

"Contributions paid in different countries are not added together to pay one single pension. Pensions are paid separately by each country that the customer has paid into."

pinnks

Perhaps it is how you have worded things but I am not sure you have fully understood how it works (actually, I don't think DWP quite gets it either but that is a different question).

When you claim your UK pension, DWP must do 2 calculations under the EU rules, even though they have said they only do them if you have fewer than 10 UK years - perhaps this is because they are mathematically identical if you have more that 10 UK years and, before the new State Pension was introduced, I think the legislation probably does lift the requirement as there was no minimum years requirement at that time, so the calculations were always identical.

Anyway, by way of example, let's assume you have either 5 UK years and 30 Irish years, or 30 UK years and 5 Irish. Let's also ignore the transitional rules and assume the new state pension with 35 years for a full UK pension has always applied.

The EU requires the UK to:
1. Calculate your pension based solely on your UK years. That would give £0 pension in the first scenario as you have fewer than 10 years and would give 30/35 x £203.85 = £174.83 in the second scenario.

2. Calculate a "theoretical pension" assuming all years were in the UK, so 5+30 and 30+5 = 35 in both cases.  That would give a theoretical amount of 35/35 x £203.85 = £203.85 (I was always this good at maths, lol).  That is then pro-rated (apportioned) based on your actual UK years, so 5/35 x £203.85 = £17.47 for scenario 1 and 30/35 x £203.85 = £174.83 for scenario 2.

Your pension is the higher of the 2 calculations.

For scenario 1 where you have only 5 UK years, the comparison is £0 with £17.47 and you get £17.47 as aggregation has got you past the 10-year requirement.

For scenario 2 where you have 30 UK years, the comparison is £174.83 with £174.83, i.e. identical, so applying the EU rules doesn't change anything.  This is, I think, why the UK words it's text in the way it does, as there is no point doing all that maths when you know it will never change things.

Now let's look at Ireland.  They too have to do the same 2 calculations using their pension rules with their minimum years requirements etc, and pay you the higher amount as a pension.  With only 2 years in Ireland, I imagine calculation 1 will also yield 0€ but calculation 2 should yield more than 0€, so again, aggregation will mean you get an Irish pension based on your 2 years.

You will apply for both pensions via DWP when you reach pension age in the country for whose pension you are applying.  It matters not that pension age in one country is younger than in the other.  For instance, I claimed my German pension via DWP at age 63 and will claim my UK pension at 66.  The theory is that you apply only once but my experience of claiming a foreign pension before UK pension age is that DWP still wants a claim for the UK pension when the time comes, so you make 2 claims to them but hardly a troubling reality, lol 

ozlow

thanks pinnks!

I think it just boils down to "it'll be grand" to use an Irish phrase.

I guess I just wanted to make sure I haven't "lost" those 2 years. I wondered whether they could be taken into account. And they will, just not in the way I was wondering.

I was coming from the angle of whether I could get my national insurance record updated now, so that I don't have the 2 year gap, and it says 4 years til I qualify for full state pension, instead of the 6 it currently says.

And again, as others questioned, and I eventually described, it's not that I am desperate to retire in 4 years, or dependent on it, rather that I wanted to make sure I didn't lost out in some way of those 2 years (if they were going to matter)

Clear as mud eh? Apologies all, and thanks for all the input!