Ten years minimum contribution

brexpat

Hello, 

I lived in the UK for 22 years but moved back to Europe in 2019.

I'm considering topping up my NI contributions as I have a few partial years and then about 3 I would need to buy in full to get me up to 10 years.

Now my question: everywhere on government websites and also on the MSE piece about this it says "you will usually need 10 qualifying years" but I can't find out what the exceptions to this rule are or if it's guaranteed to always be 10 years to get any pension at all.

I don't want the years I've already paid in to go to waste but it would cost me just shy of £3k to top my years up to 10 years and want to make sure I have considered everything before doing so.

Any advice or thinks to look out for would be appreciated, thanks so much! 

molerat

10 years is the minimum UK contribution to be entitled to a pension

but

If you have contributions from another country they could be used in assessing that 10 years so 5 years UK and 5 years overseas would add up to 10 and allow you to receive 5 years of UK pension.

Have you looked into class 2 contributions ? Social Security abroad: NI38 - GOV.UK

Were you working immediately before you moved overseas and working now ?  You could be in the fortunate position of being able to buy multiple years of pension at £328 per year for less than £200 each !

So what exactly does your forecast and NI record show ?

QrizB

My understanding (which might be flawed) is that you need 10 qualifying years to get any pension. However years spent working in other EU countries can count towards those ten years, but NOT towards how much you are paid.

So for example, one year in the UK plus 9+ years in the EU would gain you a UK pension, but the amount paid would be based on one year not ten. So £6 and change a week.

Buying UK years typically pays for itself in ~3 years of extra pension payments, so your £3k should earn you at least £1000 a year in extra pension once you are able to claim it.

brexpat

Thank you @molerat and @QrizB so much for taking the time to reply! appreciate it.

"So what exactly does your forecast and NI record show ?"

ok I checked again and it is worse than I thought/wrote in my inital post. I actually only have three full years, ouch. I grew up in the UK but moved abroad when I was 24 hence not that many full years...

There are a further 3 years that I can top up at "discounted rates" as I had some NI contributions in those years but then that would leave me with 4 more years that I need to fill to meet the 10 years requirement. (leaving aside the possibility of using time spent working abroad to get me up to ten for a minute).

@molerat are you saying that it might be a better/cheaper idea to top up these years via voluntary NI contributions (yes, I was working in UK immediately before leaving and work now) rather than back paying the £835/year to fill the remaining 4 gaps?

will also give the future pension center a ring.

thank you!

brexpat

*I would also just add that, never say never ofc, but I am not planning on moving back to the UK, so it is likely that I won't top my pension up any futher than the 10 minimum years and am paying into the pension system of the country I live in, and if I stay living and working here I will fulfil the criteria for pension here. So my idea behind topping up to the 10 year min in UK is more so that the years I have paid in so far don't go to waste.

QrizB

2015/16 seems a no brainer for less than £16. You'll get that much back in your first three weeks of retirement.

And 2013/14 for £158.50 is also cheaper than you'll ever find a year again.

Both of those will stop being available to you in April, so you need to get a wiggle on if you want to buy them.

brexpat said:

molerat are you saying that it might be a better/cheaper idea to top up these years via voluntary NI contributions (yes, I was working in UK immediately before leaving and work now) rather than back paying the £835/year to fill the remaining 4 gaps?

Molerat is more knowledgeable than me but yes, as I understand it, if you were working immediately before moving abroad, you should be able to pay Class 2 NI contributions for later years - around £200 a year - instead of the £8-900 a year that's currently shown as your Class 3 prices.

molerat

If you were working immediately prior to leaving UK you should be able to pay class 2 for any week you were working overseas so there is little point paying for any full price prior years but if those years shown are after you left the UK then they should be fillable at class 2 rate, the NI record only show the class 3 rate though.

Does your forecast show how many years you need to reach the 10, I believe it should.

How have you worked out how many full years you actually have, they used to show a useful list but removed it ?  I see 4 not in that fillable table but what does the full record show including any text at the bottom of it ?

What year were you born ?  What year does it show for your retirement ?  Were you UK born, if not when did you arrive in UK ?

It is though all about what you really want to achieve - just filling the absolute minimum or getting a full UK pension on top of any other one at a very cheap rate - the full 35 years would cost a one off £7000 and give a pension of £11500 per year !

brexpat

Hello @molerat

I was born in 1994 outside the UK (in EU) and arrived in the UK just before my 3rd birthday. I left the UK in the summer of 2019.

My forecast says that I currently have three years on my record, so would need at min another 7. and it says I can retire in 2062 and current prediction (as of this letter from Future PEnsions I got in 2022) is £179.60 a week.

yep! they do still show that list, it is on the page before you click through to the fillable years.

"the full 35 years would cost a one off £7000 and give a pension of £11500 per year" I literally did not know this or about voluntary contributions till this thread so, thank you!!

molerat

My forecast says that I currently have three years on my record,

The fillable list is missing 14/15, 16/17, 18/19 & 19/20 so I assumed they are full which is 4. So what is it showing for those 4 years ?

I was born in 1994

I asked because prior to 2010 you got 3 free years for being 16, 17 & 18.  You just missed out on that.

and it says I can retire in 2062 and current prediction (as of this letter from Future PEnsions I got in 2022) is £179.60 a week.

That leaves you 38 years to get a full pension and likely needing only a max of another 32 contributions to get there.  £179.20 was the full pension in 21/22 and you are still able to get the full pension of currently £221.20.  There is no need for you to fill any back years and you don't have to do anything just now apart from deciding what you want to achieve with all this new found information.

brexpat

The fillable list is missing 14/15, 16/17, 18/19 & 19/20 so I assumed they are full which is 4. So what is it showing for those 4 years ?

Hello @molerat, this is what it is showing, wild that it takes them 5+ years to "check" will ask them what's up with that when I call them.

"I asked because prior to 2010 you got 3 free years for being 16, 17 & 18.  You just missed out on that." Gutted! expensive uni and no free years born too late!

and here is the updated info from my forecast (assuming I were to contribute another 32 years which is unlikely as I do not live or work in UK):

Last question (Promise!) what do you mean by "There is no need for you to fill any back years"? would it not make sense to back fill the cheap ones and apply to pay voluntary NI contributions to get up to the ten full years? To me at least it seems easier and more fruitful than trying to use my EU years to get up to the ten years needed.

molerat

Whilst you are working you can pay class 2 at around £200 per year. Or you can pay class 2 for some of those past years.  Obviously paying that £15 and probably £158 one at class 3 is a no brainer but you don't actually need to buy any back years, you have enough years going forward to pay as you go along until you hit that 10.  But why stop at the 10, you can get a full UK pension on top of your EU one for peanuts, far less than it would cost you if you were actually working here paying NI - the remaining 32 would cost you around £6400 which you would get back in the first 6 months of retirement.