By Paul Roberts
This article is published on: 24th July 2020
This guide is compiled to help you find out more about your UK state pension entitlement and explain how you can top-up your entitlement by making voluntary contributions.
Most of the leg-work can be done on-line using the HMRC sites.
The sites are a joy to navigate, so don’t be fearful! Let’s go.
• To get some general information about UK state pension entitlement / the amounts you will receive and how to claim it etc, click onto the following link;
https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension
• To check when you will be entitled to receive your UK state pension, click onto the following link;
https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-age
• To check how much UK state pension you will get , you need to click onto the following link, https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-your-state-pension but before you can get onto that link; you need to open up a “government gateway account” by clicking on this link and following the instructions;
https://www.access.service.gov.uk/registration/email
….and to set up the government gateway above you will need your National insurance number, your mobile phone and your passport to hand. It is a straightforward process. Once you are set-up you will be given a password, a user ID which in conjunction with an access number, given via your mobile phone, allows you to access your HMRC data and check your state pension entitlements by clicking onto;
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-your-state-pension
• If you can’t remember what your National Insurance Number is then click on the following link;
https://www.gov.uk/lost-national-insurance-number
To see the exact number of years that you have contributed, click here;
https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record
If you want to investigate how to fill in the gaps by making voluntary national contributions (and this is the interesting bit) then click onto the following link;
https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions
You can make top up by paying Class 2 NIC’s very inexpensively; provided you meet the conditions:
If you scroll down on https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions – to living and working abroad you will see the following information;
If you qualify, this is the one to go for:
You can check out the following (excellent) site for a well written account of what you might get and who might be entitled to get it.
https://www.healthplanspain.com/blog/expat-tips/318-paying-uk-national-insurance-when-living-in-spain.html
To pay Class 2 NIC’s go to the following link and click on PAY NOW and follow the instructions
https://www.gov.uk/pay-class-2-national-insurance
There is a bit of form filling to do but the benefits are well worth the effort, or at least that was very much my case where I was able to backdate my contributions by 7 years at a cost of around 1000 GBP. These 7 years contributions entitle me to around 7/35 of the state pension which is something of the order of 175 GBP a week from the age of 66 in my case. If one assumes that I get there and live to be an average age, then I’ll pass away age 85ish.
So, what will I gain?
Investment 1000 GBP. Average benefits 7/35 x 175 GBP x (85-66) x52= 34,580 GBP. Wow! And that is all indexed linked. AND, apart from backdating you can set up an annual payment and keep making contributions easily and automatically by direct debit. All well worth looking at .
Good luck with it all and let me know how you get on.
