Voluntary German pension contributions while living in the UK

pinkgangster

Hi!
I lived for a while in Germany before moving to the UK and I contributed to the pension system there for 1.5 years. I would like to continue to contribute for an additional 3.5 years so I can fulfil their 5-year criteria to qualify for the pension. 
Can anyone help me with suggestions or indicate a direction- where I should go and who I should ask? How should I apply for this? I know there is a way to ask for my contributions back as a one-time payment, but if there is the possibility of making some additional voluntary contributions so I can get a pension later on, I would like to try that. 
Many thanks in advance! 

Suhusa

You can either get your existing contributions back or pay voluntary contributions. If you are eligible to pay voluntary contributions then you cannot get your contributions back, even if you don't decide to pay voluntary contributions. Germans are generally not allowed to ask for contributions back if theymove abroad, and for foreigners it's important where you move to. Germany and the UK have a social security agreement so I suspect that you can pay voluntary contributions and cannot get your contributions back. It depends on the details of the agreement. Contact the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (DRV) - they don't bite and they can tell you and they will direct you to the right forms for whatever you want to do.

Depending on when you moved, you may not need to contribute in future though. If you fall under the retained EU rules (if you lived in Germany on or before 31 Dec 2020) you'll benefit from those rules in that your UK contributions will count towards those 5 years (your UK years will also impact the amount of pension you get in Germany although I can't say I understand the details of this calculation, even though my projected pension calculation already includes my UK years). If you lived in Germany from 2021 onwards there are also bilateral social security agreements that have similar rules for combining certain aspects of pension contributions, but I don't know if this applies to the UK and Germany.

DRV can also tell you if it's worthwhile to pay voluntary contributions. If you don't intend to return to Germany I'm not sure it will. IIRC it will take until you're about 84 (if the life expectancies don't change massively in the meantime) to recoup your payments. You can choose to pay any amount between the lowest and highest possible payment. The low one (€ 100.07) will give you a very measly increase indeed (about €5 a month per year paid) and the highest possible payment is € 1404.30 (which will give you €76 more per month). If you fall under legacy rules then you can also use your UK contributions for a disability pension (Erwerbsminderungsrente).

There are only very limited scenarios where I can see it being worthwhile paying voluntary contributions: you had very high earnings during your years in Germany and you neither fall under legacy rules nor does the social security agreement offer the option to count the wait times of both pensions together - then you might want to pay enough to make up the five years. Or you intend to return to Germany at some point and, not falling under legacy rules, want to make sure you've got enough years for a (in general measly) disability pension just in case.